What injuries are sustained by junior community-level football players? surveillance of an Australian junior football league.

Introduction: Injury surveillance in community-level football is challenging due to resource limitations and diverse organisational and operational structures. These challenges are particularly apparent in junior leagues, which often rely on parents and volunteers to provide player injury triage. We aimed to record the characteristics of injuries that occurred during games in a metropolitan-based junior football league in the 2022 season. Methods: A Victorian metropolitan-based junior league (U8 to U18, males and females) employed a commercial first aid provider to attend matches during the 2022 community football season. Injured players on game day reported to the medic for management and triage advice. Medical events were recorded by the medics centrally and then reported to the league. All players and parents who presented to the medics received a follow-up phone call from a masters level Physiotherapist with 12 years of clinical experience to ascertain injury region, mechanism, game circumstances, immediate and planned healthcare. All injuries were classified against the adapted versions of the 2020 International Olympic Committee Consensus on Recording and Reporting of Epidemiological Data on Injuries in Sport, and the Orchard Sports Injury and Illness Classification (OSIICS). Results: 439 reports were received from medics who covered 67% of game venues, with 354 (80.6%) parents participating in injury surveillance calls. Head strike injuries accounted for 54.8% of all reports (194/354). A total of 101 reports (52% of all head strike injuries) were classified as medically diagnosed concussions (n=70) or suspected concussions (n=31) (awaiting medical confirmation), with 38 (37.6%) of these presenting to an emergency department. 49 (48.5%) players were still experiencing symptoms at the time of the injury surveillance call (≥3 days following the injury). Prevalence rates indicate that 1 in every 39 players (W: 1 in 35 players vs. M: 1 in 41) sustained a head strike injury during the season, with every second being a concussion or suspected concussion. After head, the six most common body regions injured were the ankle, knee, shoulder, neck, hand and wrist. Females demonstrated a higher prevalence of ankle (W: 1 in 179 players vs. M: 1 in 342), knee (W: 1 in 179 players vs. M: 1 in 390), and wrist injuries (W: 1 in 536 players vs. M: 1 in 1095). Regarding game circumstance and injury mechanisms, 160 injuries (45.2%) involved tackling, with 336 injuries (94.9%) resulting from direct or indirect contact and only 18 injuries (5.1%) characterised as non-contact. Discussion: Concussion or suspected concussion was the most prevalent reported injury, highlighting the strong need for ongoing awareness and education in concussion in junior community football. Tackling should be a focus of ongoing research and monitoring to understand the detailed mechanisms involved. Impact/Application to the field: Our study highlights the prevalence, region and mechanism of injuries sustained in junior male and female community football. Given the high proportion of contact injuries, specifically tackling, junior community football leagues could increase the dissemination of currently available tackling skill development information. Furthermore, continual concussion education and awareness to all stakeholders may optimise injury management in this population. Declaration: My co-authors and I acknowledge that we have no conflict of interest of relevance to the submission of this abstract.