424 FO03 – ‘Injury prevention helped a lot’: how and why national team football players, coaches and clinicians engage with a context-specific injury surveillance system

Background Sports injury surveillance systems aid in injury prevention, but their development without considering end-users' perspectives has led to low adherence and honesty in self-reporting by players, compromising their effectiveness. Context-specific injury surveillance systems have been proposed to address these challenges, but there is a limited understanding of stakeholders' perceptions and experiences in using them. Objective Following the implementation of a context-specific injury surveillance system with 100% player adherence over a 60-week period, the study aimed to investigate Under-21 Maltese national football team players', coaches' and clinicians' views and experiences of how and why they engaged with the system. Design An inductive qualitative study was used. Setting This study was undertaken at the Malta Football Association (MFA), responsible for the Maltese national football teams. Participants Seventeen semi-structured interviews with Under-21 Maltese male national football team players (n=12), their coaches and clinicians (n=5) were conducted. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Interventions (or Assessment of Risk Factors) Not Applicable Main Outcome Measurements Not Applicable Results Participants highlighted questionnaire-related factors that motivated engagement with the context-specific injury surveillance system (theme 1) and factors influencing further engagement with the system based on stakeholders' actions (theme 2). Perceived outcomes experienced as a result of engaging with the injury surveillance system (theme 3), in turn, motivated players to continue reporting and engaging with the system. Conclusion To encourage players' sustained and honest reporting, injury-related information collected from well-designed questionnaires should serve to stimulate communication and teamwork among stakeholders, to prevent injuries and enhance performance.