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Original research
Injuries during the international floorball tournaments from 2012 to 2015
  1. Kati Pasanen1⇑,
  2. Merita Bruun2,
  3. Tommi Vasankari3,
  4. Minna Nurminen2,
  5. Walter O Frey4
  1. 1Tampere Research Center of Sports Medicine, UKK Institute for Health Promotion Research, TampereFinland
  2. 2International Floorball Federation, HelsinkiFinland
  3. 3UKK Institute for Health Promotion Research, TampereFinland
  4. 4Balgrist Movemed, Balgrist University Hospital, ZurichSwitzerland
  1. Correspondence to Dr Kati Pasanen; kati.pasanen{at}uta.fi

Abstract

Background Floorball is a running indoor team sport that has growing popularity worldwide. Some prospective studies have investigated injuries in national floorball leagues, but such studies at the international level are lacking.

Objective To investigate the incidence and characteristics of injuries during 12 International Floorball Federation (IFF) events.

Methods All top-level IFF events from 2012 to 2015 were included in the study. The IFF events were divided into the following groups: Men’s World Floorball Championships (2012 and 2014), Women’s World Floorball Championships (2013 and 2015), Men’s Champions Cup (2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015) and Women’s Champions Cup (2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015). The team medical personnel prospectively recorded the injuries that occurred in games and practices. The time of exposure was calculated for entire teams based on the IFF statistics.

Results Sixty-eight injuries were registered among 67 players. Sixty-five of the injuries occurred in games, resulting in an injury incidence of 21.24 per 1000 game hours (95% CI 16.13 to 26.35). There was no significant difference in the incidence of game injuries between females and males (incidence rate ratio 0.68, 95% CI 0.41 to 1.11). The ankle was the most common site of injury (24%), followed by the head (18%) and the knee (18%). Almost half of the injuries (46%) involved joints or ligaments.

Conclusions Risk of injury during IFF tournaments was lower than in many other team sports at the highest level of play. Preventive actions should focus on acute ankle and knee injuries as well as head and face injuries.

  • epidemiology
  • sports injuries
  • team sport

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjsem-2016-000217

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    Footnotes

    • Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank the International Floorball Federation and the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture for financial support. The authors greatly acknowledge the cooperation of team physicians, physiotherapists and other medical personnel who collected the data for this project. The authors would like to thank the International Floorball Federation’s Medical Committee for all practical support.

    • Contributors MB and WOF planned the data collection. MB was responsible for data recording with the help of MN KP was responsible for literature search and data analysis. KP wrote the first draft of the paper. All authors contributed to the final paper. KP is responsible for overall content as the guarantor.

    • Funding This study was financially supported by the International Floorball Federation and the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.