Prevention of Injuries in Young Athletics (Track and Field) Athletes

Prevention of Injuries in Young Athletics (Track and Field) Athletes: Initiation of Life-long Sports Health Literacy - KLUB§ Athletics

The long-term purpose of an on-going participatory action research program "The KLUB-study" in Sweden, that involves scientists and representatives from all levels of athletics, is to develop a sustainable framework for safe athletics (track and field) training for child athletes born 2002-2006. The first part of the research program, a 1-year longitudinal study analysing training and injury data, was completed in November 2017. The present study sets out to evaluate a website that aims to support coaches and caregivers in their role as adult key stakeholders to foster young athletes to become adult athletes who possess the tools to maintain a healthy sporting lifestyle.

The intervention will be implemented in youth athletics and evaluated in a randomised controlled trial (RCT). It will follow the consensus guidelines for studies in athletics and be reported according to the CONSORT checklist. The participating clubs will be randomly allocated into active and control group. The active group will be provided the intervention program, i.e. access to a website, aimed to support coaches, caregivers´ and athletes' and improve knowledge and health literacy to make more informed choices that promote health. The control group will continue to train according to their routines and will get access to the website after 4 months. The participants will be assessed at three times, at the beginning of the study (T1), after four months (T2), at ten months (T3) and additional prospective data on training and injury will be collected during the first four months (T1b).

The control group will continue to train according to their routines and will get access to the website after 4 months.

For this study, the Frisk.Friidrott (Healthy.Athletics/Track&Field) website has been developed. The purpose of the website is to provide an easy-to-use tool that can assist coaches and parents involved in youth athletics with information how to structure training and recovery planning, provide guidance on possible injuries, and provide other information on health for youth athletes.

Evaluate health literacy using Swedish versions of; The Japanese Communicative and Critical Health literacy scale (adults) and the Health Literacy for School-aged Children (HLSAC) instrument (youth athletes)

Inclusion Criteria: belonging to a sports club and participate in organized training, athletics (track and field) born 2002 - 2006 Exclusion Criteria: not, on a regular basis, participating in athletics (track and field) training

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