Awareness among Indian professional football players about injury prevention strategies: A national survey.

OBJECTIVE

To determine the awareness and application of the injury prevention strategies by professional Indian football players through Standard Questionnaire Based Survey.

DESIGN

Descriptive Epidemiological Study.

SETTING

Professional football clubs in India.

PARTICIPANTS

Among 150 professional footballers playing in India, 109 football players participated..

PROCEDURE

The online questionnaire was made in the Google drive application. An online URL (www.tinyurl.com/futbolscptrc) was made in Google accounts by Google drive. 150 professional footballers playing in India were identified and invited to participate in this descriptive epidemiological online survey. All duly filled questionnaire responses were automatically reached in the Google drive inbox. Descriptive analysis was used for the data analysis.

RESULTS

Questionnaires were distributed to 150 professional players at nine Indian League clubs. 109 players responded, which represents a response rate of 73%. The player age and number of years as a professional footballers were 25 (4) years (range 18-38 years) and 6 (4) years (range 1-16 years) respectively. The players were from one Premier (9), two Division One (6 and 16), and two Division Two (9 and 15) teams.

CONCLUSIONS

Most of the professional Indian football players are aware about the injury prevention strategies. However, the application of these strategies is consistently followed by Premier division players.