Original Research
Incidence and risk factors for injury in non-elite Australian Football

https://doi.org/10.1016/S1440-2440(04)80033-1Get rights and content

This paper identifies the risk and protective factors for injury in non-elite Australian Football. Five hundred and thirty five non-elite Australian footballers completed a baseline questionnaire at the commencement of the 1997 preseason. Participants were telephoned each month during the 1997 and 1998 playing seasons to provide details of their exposure at training and games and any injury experiences in the previous four weeks. The incidence of injury in this study was 24 injuries per 1000 player hours. The risk factors for injury were identified as: not wearing sports-specific football boots (IRR 1.40, 95% CI 1.03–1.90); an existing back pathology (IRR 1.29, 95% CI 1.10–1.51); excessive foot pronation (IRR 1.29, 95% CI 1.07–1.56); and extroverted behaviour (IRR 1.01, 95% CI 1.00–1.03). Cooling down after training (IRR 0.95, 95% CI 0.90–0.99) and not being injured in the previous 12 months (IRR 0.73, 95% CI 0.61–0.88) were found to be protective against injury. This study found that there was a high risk of injury associated with playing Australian Football at a community level. Further research is required to gain an understanding of the mechanisms by which the identified risk factors influence injury risk in community level Australian Football.

References (20)

  • GabbeB et al.

    Australian football: injury profile at the community level

    J Sci Med Sport

    (2002)
  • Australian Football League

    AFL The Great Australian Game

    (2001)
  • NortonK et al.

    Evidence for the aetiology of injuries in Australian football

    Br J Sports Med

    (2001)
  • McCroryPR et al.

    The nature and duration of acute concussive symptoms in Australian football

    Clin J Sport Med

    (2000)
  • LambsonR et al.

    Football cleat design and its effect on anterior cruciate ligament injuries: a three-year prospective study

    Am J Sports Med

    (1996)
  • FryR et al.

    Periodisation of training stress - a review

    Canadian Journal of Sports Science

    (1992)
  • StevensonMR et al.

    Sport, age, and sex specific incidence of sports injuries in Western Australia

    British Journal of Sports Medicine

    (2000)
  • SwandonA et al.

    Injury profile of amateur Australian Rules footballers

    Australian Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport

    (1994)
  • SPSS Inc.

    Statistical Package for Social Sciences Base Version 8 Manual and Guide

  • LongJ

    Regression models for categorical and limited dependent variables

    (1997)
There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (33)

  • The relationship between physical and wellness measures and injury in amateur rugby union players

    2019, Physical Therapy in Sport
    Citation Excerpt :

    The lower limb is commonly injured in rugby (Taylor et al., 2011; Williams et al., 2013; Yeomans et al., 2018) hence the identification of risk factors for lower limb injuries was a primary focus in the current paper. The following assessments have previously examined musculoskeletal pain and lower limb injury in various athletic populations and were therefore included; foot posture type (navicular drop test) (McManus et al., 2004), soleus muscle flexibility (knee to wall test) (Malliaras, Cook, & Kent, 2006), hamstring muscle flexibility (straight leg raise test) (De La Motte, Lisman, Gribbin, Murphy, & Deuster, 2017) and groin muscle strength (adductor squeeze test) (Whittaker, Small, Maffey, & Emery, 2015). The incidence of rugby-related injuries in relation to muscular strength (Evans, Hughes, & Williams, 2018) and pitch surface (Ranson, George, Rafferty, Miles, & Moore, 2018) has been investigated in professional and semi-professional rugby and Rugby League however, these have been examined in isolation without consideration of the complex interactions of the other aforementioned factors.

  • Ground hardness and injury in community level Australian football

    2012, Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport
View all citing articles on Scopus
View full text