The first consensus statement on the definition and data collection process for soccer injuries was released in 2006 but now needs to be updated to align with scientific developments in several areas, including onset, recurrent complaints, and inclusion in disease registries. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) recently issued a general consensus statement for sports on methods for recording and reporting epidemiological data on sports injuries and diseases. In that statement, a call was made for subsequent sport-specific extensions and more detailed recommendations related to sport and/or the environment. In the past 2 years, sport-specific extensions for golf, tennis, cycling, and disability sports have been released. The sport-specific extensions should result in more consistent study designs, data collection procedures, and nomenclature in future injury and disease surveillance studies for the targeted sports. The purpose of this comprehensive consensus statement is to provide a soccer-specific extension, as well as an update on the methods and reporting of soccer epidemiological studies.
The IOC Medical Scientific Advisory Committee established a panel of 16 soccer medical and/or scientific experts, two players, and one coach. Based on the IOC consensus statement, the panel conducted a literature review of each included sub-theme and conducted two rounds of voting before and during the 2-day consensus meeting. The group agreed on 40 of the 75 pre-conference ballot statements and 21 of the 44 conference ballot statements, respectively. The methods and definitions presented in this comprehensive football-specific extension should ensure a more consistent study design, data collection procedures, and use of nomenclature in future epidemiologic studies of soccer injuries and diseases, regardless of setting. It should facilitate comparisons between studies and the pooling of data.
Key Points of Consensus:
1. Standardized methods and reporting of sports injury and disease studies are important to improve injury and disease management and prevention strategies.
2. The soccer consensus statement issued in 2006 only covers methods for epidemiological studies of soccer injuries and needs to be updated to accommodate scientific developments.
3. A diverse group of experts agreed on several recommendations in a football-specific extension of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) consensus statement on methods for recording and reporting epidemiological data on sports injuries and diseases.
4. The main revisions to the IOC consensus statement are the use of football-specific terminology, the definition of return to the soccer field after a health problem, a more detailed classification of the severity of health problems, and the definition of match and pre-match exposure.
5. The proposed methods and definitions presented in this comprehensive football-specific extension should ensure more consistent study designs, data collection procedures, and nomenclature are used in future soccer injury and disease surveillance studies.
6. Methodological consistency should facilitate inter-study comparisons and data pooling. This consensus extension should ensure more consistent study design and use of the recommended nomenclature in future soccer injury and disease surveillance studies, regardless of setting, thereby facilitating comparisons between studies and pooling of data. Nonetheless, we believe that further updates to this publication may be required over the next decade due to the expected surge of new literature and scientific developments in the field. Until then, we encourage journal editors and peer reviewers to check submitted manuscripts for consistency with the IOC General Consensus Statement and the current football-specific consensus extensions.
This comprehensive football-specific extension of the IOC Consensus Statement should ensure the use of more consistent study designs, data collection procedures, and nomenclature in future soccer injury and disease surveillance studies, improving injury and disease management and prevention strategies, and it should facilitate comparisons between studies and the pooling of data. Original paper: Waldén M, Mountjoy M, McCall A, et al. Football-specific extension of the IOC consensus statement: methods for recording and reporting of epidemiological data on injury and illness in sport 2020. British Journal of Sports Medicine. Published Online First: 06 January 2023. doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2022-106405 Copyright ©Sports Medicine and Health Science, SMHS, All Rights Reserved.