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Comparison of Indiana High School Football Injury Rates by Inclusion of the USA Football “Heads Up Football” Player Safety Coach

BACKGROUND: In Indiana, high school football coaches are required to complete a coaching education course with material related to concussion awareness, equipment fitting, heat emergency preparedness, and proper technique. Some high schools have also opted to implement a player safety coach (PSC). T...

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Autores principales: Kerr, Zachary Y., Dalton, Sara L., Roos, Karen G., Djoko, Aristarque, Phelps, Jennifer, Dompier, Thomas P.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2016
Materias:
122
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4876440/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27275000
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2325967116648441
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author Kerr, Zachary Y.
Dalton, Sara L.
Roos, Karen G.
Djoko, Aristarque
Phelps, Jennifer
Dompier, Thomas P.
author_facet Kerr, Zachary Y.
Dalton, Sara L.
Roos, Karen G.
Djoko, Aristarque
Phelps, Jennifer
Dompier, Thomas P.
author_sort Kerr, Zachary Y.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: In Indiana, high school football coaches are required to complete a coaching education course with material related to concussion awareness, equipment fitting, heat emergency preparedness, and proper technique. Some high schools have also opted to implement a player safety coach (PSC). The PSC, an integral component of USA Football’s Heads Up Football (HUF) program, is a coach whose primary responsibility is to ensure that other coaches are implementing proper tackling and blocking techniques alongside other components of the HUF program. PURPOSE: To compare injury rates in Indiana high school football teams by their usage of a PSC or online coaching education only. STUDY DESIGN: Cohort study; Level of evidence, 2. METHODS: Athletic trainers (ATs) evaluated and tracked injuries at each practice and game during the 2015 high school football season. Players were drawn from 6 teams in Indiana. The PSC group, which used the PSC component, was comprised of 204 players from 3 teams. The “education only” group (EDU), which utilized coaching education only, was composed of 186 players from 3 teams. Injury rates and injury rate ratios (IRRs) were reported with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). RESULTS: During 25,938 athlete-exposures (AEs), a total of 149 injuries were reported, of which 54 (36.2%) and 95 (63.8%) originated from the PSC and EDU groups, respectively. The practice injury rate was lower in the PSC group than the EDU group (2.99 vs 4.83/1000 AEs; IRR, 0.62; 95% CI, 0.40-0.95). The game injury rate was also lower in the PSC group than the EDU group (11.37 vs 26.37/1000 AEs; IRR, 0.43; 95% CI, 0.25-0.74). When restricted to concussions only, the rate was lower in the PSC group (0.09 vs 0.73/1000 AEs; IRR, 0.12; 95% CI, 0.01-0.94), although only 1 concussion was reported in the PSC group. No differences were found in game concussion rates (0.60 vs 4.39/1000 AEs; IRR, 0.14; 95% CI, 0.02-1.11). CONCLUSION: Findings support the PSC as an effective method of injury mitigation in high school football. Future research should seek to replicate this study using larger samples from additional states.
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spelling pubmed-48764402016-06-03 Comparison of Indiana High School Football Injury Rates by Inclusion of the USA Football “Heads Up Football” Player Safety Coach Kerr, Zachary Y. Dalton, Sara L. Roos, Karen G. Djoko, Aristarque Phelps, Jennifer Dompier, Thomas P. Orthop J Sports Med 122 BACKGROUND: In Indiana, high school football coaches are required to complete a coaching education course with material related to concussion awareness, equipment fitting, heat emergency preparedness, and proper technique. Some high schools have also opted to implement a player safety coach (PSC). The PSC, an integral component of USA Football’s Heads Up Football (HUF) program, is a coach whose primary responsibility is to ensure that other coaches are implementing proper tackling and blocking techniques alongside other components of the HUF program. PURPOSE: To compare injury rates in Indiana high school football teams by their usage of a PSC or online coaching education only. STUDY DESIGN: Cohort study; Level of evidence, 2. METHODS: Athletic trainers (ATs) evaluated and tracked injuries at each practice and game during the 2015 high school football season. Players were drawn from 6 teams in Indiana. The PSC group, which used the PSC component, was comprised of 204 players from 3 teams. The “education only” group (EDU), which utilized coaching education only, was composed of 186 players from 3 teams. Injury rates and injury rate ratios (IRRs) were reported with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). RESULTS: During 25,938 athlete-exposures (AEs), a total of 149 injuries were reported, of which 54 (36.2%) and 95 (63.8%) originated from the PSC and EDU groups, respectively. The practice injury rate was lower in the PSC group than the EDU group (2.99 vs 4.83/1000 AEs; IRR, 0.62; 95% CI, 0.40-0.95). The game injury rate was also lower in the PSC group than the EDU group (11.37 vs 26.37/1000 AEs; IRR, 0.43; 95% CI, 0.25-0.74). When restricted to concussions only, the rate was lower in the PSC group (0.09 vs 0.73/1000 AEs; IRR, 0.12; 95% CI, 0.01-0.94), although only 1 concussion was reported in the PSC group. No differences were found in game concussion rates (0.60 vs 4.39/1000 AEs; IRR, 0.14; 95% CI, 0.02-1.11). CONCLUSION: Findings support the PSC as an effective method of injury mitigation in high school football. Future research should seek to replicate this study using larger samples from additional states. SAGE Publications 2016-05-19 /pmc/articles/PMC4876440/ /pubmed/27275000 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2325967116648441 Text en © The Author(s) 2016 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work as published without adaptation or alteration, without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle 122
Kerr, Zachary Y.
Dalton, Sara L.
Roos, Karen G.
Djoko, Aristarque
Phelps, Jennifer
Dompier, Thomas P.
Comparison of Indiana High School Football Injury Rates by Inclusion of the USA Football “Heads Up Football” Player Safety Coach
title Comparison of Indiana High School Football Injury Rates by Inclusion of the USA Football “Heads Up Football” Player Safety Coach
title_full Comparison of Indiana High School Football Injury Rates by Inclusion of the USA Football “Heads Up Football” Player Safety Coach
title_fullStr Comparison of Indiana High School Football Injury Rates by Inclusion of the USA Football “Heads Up Football” Player Safety Coach
title_full_unstemmed Comparison of Indiana High School Football Injury Rates by Inclusion of the USA Football “Heads Up Football” Player Safety Coach
title_short Comparison of Indiana High School Football Injury Rates by Inclusion of the USA Football “Heads Up Football” Player Safety Coach
title_sort comparison of indiana high school football injury rates by inclusion of the usa football “heads up football” player safety coach
topic 122
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4876440/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27275000
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2325967116648441
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