A 15-year prospective epidemiological account of acute traumatic injuries during official professional soccer league matches in Japan.

BACKGROUND

Few prospective epidemiological studies on soccer match injuries have collected continuous data using subjects from the same group.

PURPOSE

To investigate long-term injury-induced changes during official matches in the professional Japanese soccer league.

STUDY DESIGN

Descriptive epidemiological study.

METHODS

Acute injuries during official matches among top-division Japanese professional soccer leaguers were prospectively collected from 1993 to 2007. Injuries preventing player participation for 7 days or more were defined as a reportable injury. Interseasonal variations of injury rate (IR: injuries/1000/player hours) and injury pattern (type, location, circumstances, severity, injury time, positional role, and relationship to weather) were analyzed.

RESULTS

Throughout the study period, 2947 injuries from 3984 matches occurred. Mean annual IR was 21.77/1000 player hours, and annual variance showed gradual decrement throughout the study period. The proportion of injury type and location were not significantly changed. Sprain and contusion as injury type and thigh and ankle joint as location were the most common in every season. Contact-related injuries comprised 73.3% on average and were observed to occur more frequently during the last 15 minutes and extra time of match play. The proportion of foul play-related injuries showed a clear declining trend. The proportion of severe injury showed a sporadic increase from 2001 to 2004. The second, fifth, and sixth 15-minute match segments showed a higher IR. Goalkeepers had a lower IR versus other field players. Matches on rainy days resulted in a lower IR than did those held under other weather conditions.

CONCLUSION

Long-term surveillance and statistical feedback of injury characteristics to organization members were considered effective in improving safer play awareness among players and for referees to reduce injury incidence, particularly foul play-related injuries.