Working towards More Effective Implementation, Dissemination and Scale-Up of Lower-Limb Injury-Prevention Programs: Insights from Community Australian Football Coaches

Angela McGlashan, Glenda Verrinder and Evert Verhagen
Additional contact information
Angela McGlashan: Department of Community and Allied Health, La Trobe Rural Health School, College of Science, Health and Engineering, La Trobe University, Victoria 3550, Australia
Glenda Verrinder: Department of Community and Allied Health, La Trobe Rural Health School, College of Science, Health and Engineering, La Trobe University, Victoria 3550, Australia
Evert Verhagen: Amsterdam Collaboration on Health and Safety in Sports, Department of Public and Occupational Health, Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, VU University Medical Center Amsterdam, 1007 MB. Amsterdam, The Netherlands

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 2, 1-23

Abstract: Disseminating lower-limb injury-prevention exercise programs (LL-IPEPs) with strategies that effectively reach coaches across sporting environments is a way of preventing lower-limb injuries (LLIs) and ensuring safe and sustainable sport participation. The aim of this study was to explore community-Australian Football (community-AF) coaches’ perspectives on the strategies they believed would enhance the dissemination and scale-up of LL-IPEPs. Using a qualitative multiple case study design, semi-structured interviews with community-AF coaches in Victoria, Australia, were conducted. Overall, coaches believed a range of strategies were important including: coach education, policy drivers, overcoming potential problem areas, a ‘try before you buy approach’, presenting empirical evidence and guidelines for injury-prevention exercise programs (IPEPs), forming strategic collaboration and working in partnership, communication and social marketing, public meetings, development of a coach hotline, and targeted multi-focused approaches. A shift to a culture whereby evidence-based IPEP practices in community-AF will take time, and persistent commitment by all involved in the sport is important. This will support the creation of strategies that will enhance the dissemination and scale-up of LL-IPEPs across community sport environments. The focus of research needs to continue to identify effective, holistic and multi-level interventions to support coaches in preventing LLIs. This could lead to the determination of successful strategies such as behavioural regulation strategies and emotional coping resources to implement LL-IPEPs into didactic curricula and practice. Producing changes in practice will require attention to which strategies are a priority and the most effective.

Keywords: coaching; sport injury prevention; implementation and dissemination; Australian Football; lower-limb injury (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/2/351/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/2/351/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:2:p:351-:d:132176

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().