PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Huw Rees
AU  - James Matthews
AU  - Ulrik McCarthy Persson
AU  - Eamonn Delahunt
AU  - Colin Boreham
AU  - Catherine Blake
TI  - Coaches’ attitudes to injury and injury prevention: a qualitative study of Irish field hockey coaches
AID  - 10.1136/bmjsem-2021-001074
DP  - 2021 Jul 01
TA  - BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine
PG  - e001074
VI  - 7
IP  - 3
4099  - http://bmjopensem.bmj.com/content/7/3/e001074.short
4100  - http://bmjopensem.bmj.com/content/7/3/e001074.full
SO  - BMJ OPEN SP EX MED2021 Jul 01; 7
AB  - Translating injury prevention research into practice has been challenging, which may be due to a poor understanding of the contextual factors influencing the occurrence of injury. Coaches are key figure in sporting environments and hold pivotal roles in preventing injury. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the attitudes of field hockey coaches to injury and injury prevention. Thirteen field hockey coaches from the amateur Irish Hockey League were interviewed. Reflexive thematic analysis led to three general dimensions comprised five higher-order themes, categorised from 16 lower-order themes. Coaches had positive beliefs regarding the benefits of injury prevention over injury management. However, they lacked the necessary knowledge and skills to successfully implement injury prevention strategies with players. Coaches recognised the importance of empowering players to self-manage training loads to promote injury prevention but acknowledged the need to protect younger players from increased loads. Many barriers to injury prevention were not controllable by coaches including fixture congestion and poor structuring of the sport’s domestic calendar. While coaches can play a key role in the implementation of injury prevention strategies, there is also a requirement to examine how system level barriers to injury prevention can be reduced.No data are available.