Fear Avoidance After Injury and Readiness to Return to Sport in Collegiate Male and Female Gaelic Games Players.

BACKGROUND: Injuries are common in collegiate Gaelic games, and negative psychological responses to injury, such as fear avoidance and a lack of psychological readiness to return to sport, can affect players during their rehabilitation and their subsequent return to sport. Thus, identifying these responses in players can allow clinicians to address these issues during rehabilitation. This study aimed to examine fear avoidance and psychological readiness to return to sport in collegiate Gaelic games players. HYPOTHESIS: Collegiate Gaelic games players will experience similar levels of fear avoidance and psychological readiness to return to sport as other adult athletes. STUDY DESIGN: Cohort study. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level 3. METHODS: Male (n = 150) and female (n = 76) players from 1 Irish collegiate institution were recruited. Players that were injured over 1 collegiate season completed the Athlete Fear Avoidance Questionnaire (AFAQ) immediately after the injury and the Injury-Psychological Readiness to Return to Sport (I-PRRS) Scale once cleared to return to sport. An injury report form was also completed. The overall AFAQ (sum of 10 items) and I-PRRS (sum of 6 items/10) scores were calculated. RESULTS: Seventy-three injuries (n = 73) occurred, and injured players had a mean overall AFAQ and I-PRRS score of 22.6 ± 5.3 and 46.4 ± 8.8, respectively. Just less than half (47.9%) of players were deemed psychologically unready to return to sport when cleared physically. After severe injuries, significantly higher overall AFAQ scores than mild injuries (P = 0.01) and lower overall I-PRRS than moderate injuries (P < 0.0001) was noted. For the overall scores, no gender differences were observed. CONCLUSION: Fear avoidance and lowered confidence levels before return to sport occurs in collegiate Gaelic games players similar to other student-athletes. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Identification of fear avoidance or low readiness to return to sport, particularly after serious injury, is important to implement psychosocial support during their rehabilitation.

Injuries in Collegiate Ladies Gaelic Footballers: A 2-Season Prospective Cohort Study.

CONTEXT: Although Ladies Gaelic football is one of the most popular female sports in Ireland, just 2 previous injury surveillance studies have been completed, and both were retrospective in nature. OBJECTIVE: To prospectively examine the injury incidence and injury profile in collegiate Ladies Gaelic football over 2 seasons. DESIGN: Prospective cohort study. SETTING: College. Patients (or Other Participants): Adult Ladies Gaelic footballers from one collegiate institution (season 1: n = 50, season 2: n = 82). INTERVENTION(S): All time-loss injuries that occurred were recorded by certified athletic therapists and student-athletic therapists and trainers over 2 seasons. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: A standardized injury report form was used to record the injury onset, mechanism, location, nature, and outcome. Injury incidence proportion, repeat incidence proportion and total, match and training injury rates, and their 95% confidence intervals were calculated. The frequencies and proportions were also calculated. RESULTS: The match and training injury rates were 42.48 and 7.93 injuries per 1000 hours, respectively. A low repeat incidence proportion per season was noted (11.7% and 0.0%). The injuries were predominantly acute (74.68%) and noncontact (66.25%), with hamstring injuries (21.52%) and strains (36.71%) the most frequent location and nature of injuries noted. Strains (104.92 d absent per 1000 h) and knee injuries (106.46 d absent per 1000 h) led to the greatest injury burden. Further investigations were not frequently required, with an X-ray and magnetic resonance imaging ordered in 8.00% and 6.67% of the cases, respectively. Surgery was completed following one injury. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study to provide prospective injury data on Ladies Gaelic football. Priority needs to be given to preventing hamstring and knee injuries due to their occurrence and negative impact on player availability to play. Collegiate Ladies Gaelic football teams should be encouraged to implement an injury-prevention warm-up, such as the GAA15+, at training and matches.