Risk factors for injury and illness in youth floorball players- A prospective cohort study

Objectives: To investigate risk factors for injury and illness in female and male youth floorball players (12-17 years) during a 26-week floorball season. Design: Prospective cohort study. Setting: Recreational youth sport. Participants: 471 players (142 females) 12-17 years. Main outcome measures: Weekly survey including questions about stress, sleep quality, well-being, sport exposure and average weekly rating of perceived exertion (RPE). Acute:chronic workload ratio (ACWR) was calculated. The Oslo Sports Trauma Research Center questionnaire on health problems was used. Predictors of new injury and illness were examined using multi-level logistic regression models with weekly measures nested within individuals. Results: Higher stress, poorer sleep quality and well-being increased the odds of a new injury in the subsequent week by 8% (2.0-13.5%), 10% (4.2-15.9%) and 8% (2.4-13.5%) per 1 unit increase. Higher stress, and poorer well-being increased the odds of illness by 8% (2.6-12.6%), and 12% (7.2-16.6%). ACWR below 0.8 or above 1.3 increased the odds of illness by 34% (4.9-70.8%). Conclusions: Perceived stress, well-being, and sleep quality were associated with injury and illness occurrence in the subsequent week. ACWR outside the range 0.8-1.3 was associated with illness the subsequent week. Trial registration: Clinical Trials registration NCT03309904. (c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).