Background. Describing the frequency, severity, and causes of sports injuries and illnesses reliably is important for quantifying the\r\nrisk to athletes and providing direction for prevention initiatives. Methods. Time-loss and/or medical-attention definitions have\r\nlong been used in sports injury/illness epidemiology research, but the limitations to these definitions mean that some events are\r\nincorrectly classified or omitted completely,where athletes continue to train and compete at high levels but experience restrictions in\r\ntheir performance. Introducing a graded definition of performance-restrictionmay provide a solution to this issue. Results. Results\r\nfrom the Great Britain injury/illness performance project (IIPP) are presented using a performance-restriction adaptation of the\r\naccepted surveillance consensus methodologies. The IIPP involved 322 Olympic athletes (males: 172; female: 150) from 10 Great\r\nBritain Olympic sports between September 2009 and August 2012. Of all injuries (?? = 565), 216 were classified as causing time-loss,\r\n346 as causing performance-restriction, and 3 were unclassified. For athlete illnesses (?? = 378), the majority (?? < 0.01) resulted in\r\ntime-loss (270) comparedwith performance-restriction (101) (7 unclassified). Conclusions. Successful implementation of prevention\r\nstrategies relies on the correct characterisation of injury/illness risk factors. Including a performance-restriction classification could\r\nprovide a deeper understanding of injuries/illnesses and better informed prevention initiatives
Loading....