Abstract
Although participation in physical activity is crucial for maintaining health and wellness for all human beings, all activities have an inherent risk of injury and, in some cases, may lead to temporary injury, permanent disability or even death. Participating in sports is physically and mentally challenging, and injuries result when the physical load on the body exceeds a certain threshold. The prevention of all sports injuries is impossible. However, the risk of sports injuries could be decreased or their severity lessened if the negative impact of sports injuries on athletes, teams, coaches and society in general was lessened. Biokinetics is a profession that originated in South Africa, and its focus is using exercise as a therapeutic modality within the fields of orthopaedics, chronic disease and health promotion. The aim of this study was to develop a biokinetics model for the prevention of sports injuries.
The study utilised a sequential qualitative design that consisted of six phases. Two vastly different sports, rugby and long-distance running, were utilized to develop this model. Participants consisted of provincial rugby players, long-distance runners, coaches, biokineticists and physical therapists. Phase 1 consisted of a scoping review to determine the prevalence and risk factors of rugby and long-distance running injuries and injury prevention programmes currently available. Phase 2 consisted of three rounds of the Delphi process, where participants (n = 22) were requested to identify injury prevention strategies and practices. In Phase 3 the results were utilised to draft an initial injury prevention model. The model was then presented to the participants for the fourth round of the Delphi process for scrutinising (Phase 4). Amendments were made to the model based on the feedback from the participants, and the model was presented to the athletes, coaches and healthcare practitioners from the two sporting codes. These participants were invited to semi-structured focus groups where they were required to provide comments on the practical implementation of the model (Phase 5). The refinement and finalisation of the model commenced after the data from the focus groups were analysed and implemented (Phase 6).
Descriptive statistics (means, standard deviation and percentages) and data extraction were conducted to analyse the data from the scoping review. Thematic inductive analysis was utilised for the qualitative data derived from the Delphi process and the focus groups.
The biokinetics sports injury prevention model developed can be used in the field of biokinetics, sports science and sports coaching in both team and individual sports. The model includes various dimensions of injury prevention, including pre-participation screening,
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education of the athlete, coach and conditioning team, and intervention strategies. The intervention strategies are seen as a menu from which the stakeholders can choose to create their prevention strategies to suit the athlete’s or coaching staff’s needs. The model can be used as a guideline for developing a programme to prevent or reduce sports injuries. The next step of the process, after the model has been developed, will be to test the efficacy of this sports injury prevention model in the same cohort of participants, to determine how successful it is in the prevention of sports injuries.