Prevention of injuries in young female players in European team handball. A prospective intervention study

Young female players in European handball have a very high injury incidence , up to 50 injuries per 1000 hours of game. More than half of these injurie s happen without any external cause. The aim of the study was to investigat e the effect of an intervention programme designed to reduce the number of injuries in young female players in European handball, with special emphasi s on injuries in the lower extremities. The programme was created using eli te athlete training programmes and those designed for rehabilitation of inj ured athletes with functional instability of their ankles and rupture of th e anterior cruciate ligament. It included the use of an ankle disk for 10-1 5 min at all practice sessions, for one 10-month season (August 1995-May 19 96). Twenty-two teams participated in the study and were randomly assigned to the intervention or control group. Eleven teams with 111 players were ra ndomised to the intervention group and 11 teams with 116 players to the con trol group. Data were analysed using a t-test for continuous variables, chi (2)-analysis and Fisher's exact test for dichotomous variables and multivar iate methods to determine odds-ratios. The results indicated that using the intervention programme decreased the numbers of both traumatic and overuse injuries significantly. The differences in injuries between the groups wer e 80% during games and 71% during practice. In addition, the players in the control group had a 5.9 times higher risk of acquiring an injury than the players in the intervention group.