Translating Research Into Injury Prevention Practice Research Articles

Epidemiology, etiology and prevention of injuries in competitive ice speed skating-limited current evidence, multiple future priorities: A scoping review.

Long-track and short-track ice speed skating are integral to the Winter Olympics. The state of evidence-based injury prevention in these sports is unclear. Our goals were to summarize the current scientific knowledge, to determine the state of research, and to highlight future research areas for injury prevention in ice speed skating. We conducted a scoping review, searching all injury and injury prevention studies in competitive ice speed skaters. The six-stage Translating Research into Injury Prevention Practice (TRIPP) framework summarized the findings. The systematic search yielded 1109 citations. Nineteen studies were included, and additional searches yielded another 13 studies, but few had high-quality design. TRIPP stage 1 studies (n = 24) found competition injury rates from 2% to 18% of participants with various injury locations and types. Seasonal prevalence of physical complaints was up to 84% (for back pain) in long- and short-track. Ten studies covered information on TRIPP stage 2, with two small etiological studies linking injuries to functional strength deficits (short-track) and training load (long-track). Questionnaire studies identified various perceived risk factors for injuries but lacked further scientific evidence. Most TRIPP stage 3 studies (five out of eight) focused on developing protective measures, while two studies found short-track helmets performed poorly compared to helmets used in other sports. No study evaluated the efficacy, the intervention context, or the effectiveness (TRIPP stages 4-6) of the measures. Scientific knowledge on injury prevention in ice speed skating is limited. Future research should prioritize high-quality studies on injury epidemiology and etiology in the sports.

Nationwide sports injury prevention strategies: A scoping review.

National strategies to prevent sports injuries can potentially improve health outcomes at a population level and reduce medical costs. To date, a compilation of the strategies that countries have attempted, and their effectiveness, does not exist. This scoping review sets out to: identify nationwide attempts at implementing sports injury prevention strategies; examine the impact of these strategies; and map them onto the Translating Research into Injury Prevention Practice (TRIPP) framework. Using Levac's scoping review method, we: (a) identified the research questions, (b) identified relevant studies, (c) identified the study selection criteria, (d) charted the data, and (e) reported the results. A search of MEDLINE, Scopus, SPORTDiscus, CINAHL, and Web of Science databases for articles published pre-June 2019 was conducted. We identified 1794 studies and included 33 studies (of 24 strategies). The USA (n=7), New Zealand (n=4), Canada (n=3), the Netherlands (n=3), Switzerland (n=2), Belgium (n=1), France (n=1), Ireland (n=1), South Africa (n=1), and Sweden (n=1) have implemented nationwide sports injury prevention strategies with 29 (88%) of the included studies demonstrating positive results. Mapping the strategies onto the TRIPP framework highlighted that only four (17%) of the 24 included strategies reported on the implementation context (TRIPP Stage 5), suggesting an important reporting gap. Nationwide sports injury prevention efforts are complex, requiring a multidimensional approach. Future research should report intervention implementation data; examine the implementation context early in the research process to increase the likelihood of real-world implementation success; and could benefit from incorporating qualitative or mixed research methods.

Implementation Science: Lessons Learned From Evaluating Practice Recommendations for the Care of Patients With Spine Injuries.

Health care providers are encouraged to provide care according to practice recommendations because these suggestions should improve patient care and promote optimal patient outcomes. The goals of these practice recommendations are to improve patient care and promote optimal patient outcomes. However, without integration into clinical practice, the value of practice recommendations in supporting patient care is lost. Unfortunately, little is known about the success of integrating practice recommendations into clinical practice, and targeted efforts to promote integration are likely needed. Implementation research is a broad area of study that focuses on how guidelines, programs, or interventions are put into practice and delivered. The Translating Research Into Injury Prevention Practice (TRIPP) framework consists of 6 stages that support implementation science, and the framework has been used to assist in integrating injury-prevention programs into patient care. The structure of the TRIPP framework makes it applicable to other programs that would benefit from implementation science, including practice recommendations. Stages 5 and 6 of the TRIPP framework emphasize the need to explore the implementation context and factors related to uptake of a program by end users. This commentary highlights our efforts to use methods for implementation research to evaluate stage 5 of the TRIPP framework as it relates to acute care for patients with suspected spine injuries and provides 6 lessons learned that may assist in future efforts to better implement practice recommendations in patient care. Targeted efforts to assist clinicians in implementing practice recommendations may promote their use and ultimately enhance the care provided for patients with a variety of health conditions. An essential component of any implementation effort is understanding end users via stages 5 and 6 of the TRIPP framework, and this understanding may maximize knowledge translation and encourage practice change and advancement.

Research priorities of international sporting federations and the IOC research centres

Background/aimTo be fully effective, the prevention of injury in sport and promotion of athlete's health needs to be both targeted and underpinned by scientific evidence. This study aimed to identify...

COMMENTARY: Time for a Paradigm Shift in Conceptualizing Risk Factors in Sports Injury Research

Certified athletic trainers are positioned to play an integral role in sport-related, recreation-related, and exercise-related injury research and prevention efforts. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention1 have specifically identified certified athletic trainers and their potential to contribute to this important area of research in their recently published Injury Research Agenda for 2009–2018. From a public health perspective, identifying factors associated with injury is one of the initial steps in the injury prevention process. The ultimate goal of this line of research is to identify populations that are at greatest risk for subsequent injury and to develop effective screening and intervention strategies to reduce the incidence and burden of injury. Therefore, the manner in which risk factors are conceptualized in initial research has significant bearing on the development of subsequent screening and intervention strategies. In the current issue of the Journal of Athletic Training, Reinking et al2 examined the factors associated with exerciserelated leg pain in high school cross-country athletes. After a discussion of modifiable and nonmodifiable risk factors, the authors conceptualized risk factors for exertional leg pain as intrinsic (within the body) or extrinsic (outside the body) factors; sports injury researchers have traditionally conceptualized risk factors associated with injury in this manner.3–5 This study provides an opportunity to discuss how risk factors are conceptualized in the context of sports injury research. The seminal work by sports injury researchers such as van Mechelen et al3 and Meeuwisse5 provided a theoretic framework for sports injury research, and although these models have evolved since they were first described,6–9 they have consistently characterized risk factors for injury as intrinsic factors and extrinsic factors. It is important to consider that injuries often result from the complex interaction of multiple factors3,7,10 in a dynamically changing environment,6 but the characterization of risk factors as intrinsic or extrinsic limits the clinical importance and usefulness of results in relation to future injury screening and prevention efforts. More importantly, characterizing risk factors in this manner provides limited insight into whether something can be done to intervene and mitigate the contributing influence of any given factor or combination of factors with regard to subsequent injury.11 Injury epidemiologists and public health professionals, on the other hand, use a different approach to conceptualizing risk factors for disease or injury by focusing on those risk factors that are modifiable and those that are nonmodifiable. Conceptualizing risk factors as modifiable and nonmodifiable is important from a clinical and injury prevention perspective, because modifiable risk factors are amenable to intervention.11 Researchers12,13 of chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and type 2 diabetes, have conceptualized risk factors as modifiable and nonmodifiable. Some of these risk factors include physical activity, diet, smoking, and obesity, to name a few. Subsequent intervention efforts have been developed and evaluated to address these factors, with various degrees of success. Conceptualizing risk factors as modifiable and nonmodifiable aligns with the ‘‘Translating Research into Injury Prevention Practice (TRIPP)’’ framework described by Finch,9 which applies a public health approach to sports injury prevention. Clinicians and injury researchers are most interested in modifiable risk factors associated with injury because they provide the vector for developing injury prevention interventions. Although nonmodifiable risk factors may not be useful as targets for intervention, they are particularly important in identifying populations that are at greatest risk for injury, so that injury prevention strategies can be directed to those with the most pressing need. This information can be used to develop risk profiles for specific injuries, to screen athletes to identify those at greatest risk for injury, and to guide injury prevention interventions that target modifiable risk factors. This information can also be used to develop interventions and social marketing campaigns that are culturally and ecologically appropriate for the populations at greatest risk for injury.14 When only nonmodifiable risk factors associated with injury are known, this information can be used to counsel athletes and parents about potential risks during the preparticipation screening process, so they can make informed decisions about participation. Recently, researchers have conceptualized risk factors as modifiable and nonmodifiable in the sports medicine literature. Emerging research10,15–17 into the risk factors associated with anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries is one of the best examples in the sports medicine literature of how the conceptualization of risk factors has evolved. Early work15 in this area conceptualized risk factors as intrinsic and extrinsic, while recognizing the importance of focusing on factors that are modifiable. Subsequent consensus statements10,16 on the risk factors for ACL