Injury prevention in female soccer players

Summary of a systematic review article on injury prevention programmes in female soccer players.

Who

11,773 female soccer (football) players (Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, USA).

Design

• Systematic review with meta-analysis of 12 studies.
• GRADE rating of evidence.

Outcome measures

• Overall injuries.
• ACL, knee, ankle, hip/groin and hamstring injuries.

Main results

• All but one study had a high risk of bias. Practice and match injuries were analyzed together.
• Intervention groups had a reduction of 22% in an overall number of injuries when analyzing all studies (low-level evidence). For studies using multiple training components, the reduction was 27% (low-level evidence).
• There was no difference for all studies testing ACL injuries, but for studies with multiple training components, a reduction was 45% (low-level evidence).
• Hamstring injuries were reduced by 60% when all the studies were analyzed (low-level evidence). No difference between groups when two studies with multiple training components were analyzed.
• No difference for ankle, knee or hip/groin injuries between intervention and control groups (low-level evidence).
• Incidence of injury in football for female athletes is similar for adolescent and adult athletes apart for hamstring injuries:

Take home message

Original article

Crossley KM, Patterson BE, Culvenor AG, Bruder AM, Mosler AB, Mentiplay BF. Making football safer for women: a systematic review and meta-analysis of injury prevention programmes in 11 773 female football (soccer) players. British journal of sports medicine. 2020 Apr 5.