777 BO28 – Can we START to prevent injury in UK school sports?

Background The research-practice gap in injury prevention is still wide open despite continued efforts to include implementation science in effectiveness trials. A novel approach is required in settings that are complex and dynamic such as UK schools. Objective This study aimed to describe the co-production process and feasibility trial of the START injury prevention intervention for UK schools. Design This study was comprised of two parts: (1) A co-production project between physical education teachers from UK secondary schools and the research team, (2) A 12-week feasibility trial in participating schools. Participants Six PE teachers with varying levels of experience took part in the co-production, with five teachers completing the feasibility trial. Setting UK secondary schools. Intervention The intervention tested was the Strength, Tension (core), Aerial (jumping and landing), React (change of direction) and Technique (sports specific skills) (START), multi-modal injury prevention warm-up. START was designed as an adaptable framework to allow individual teachers to design a warm-up suitable for their setting based on priorities for injury risk reduction in children aged 11 to 16 years. Outcome Measurements This study described the development of START and reported on the teachers subjective assessment of feasibility in their setting using Bowen's criteria for feasibility trials. Each criterion was scored on a 9-point Likert scale. Results The criterion of Adaptability received the highest score (mean 7.8, SD±1.1), whilst Integration was scored the lowest (mean 5.8, SD±3.1), demonstrating that the programme was highly adaptable, but department integration was a problem in some schools. Conclusions This co-production and pilot feasibility studied demonstrated that it is possible to develop an injury prevention framework for use in UK schools, allow adaption to the complex and dynamic environment. The high variance in integration highlights that there is still a significant challenge in incorporating novel practice into school policy.