PUBLIC TENDER OF THE SPORTS FOUNDATION FOR THE CO-FINANCING OF SPORTS PROGRAMS, DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES IN SPORT, SPORTS EVENTS AND PROMOTION OF SPORT, AND SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY IN SPORT IN 2020

Duration of the project:

Principal investigator / researcher:

prof. dr. Nejc Šarabon (SICRIS, ResearchGate)

Team at UP FHS:

doc. dr. Darjan Smajla (SICRIS, ResearchGate)
asist. Žiga Kozinc (SICRIS, ResearchGate)

Project content:

The main aims of the project is to screen sport injuries and reduce their incidence in Slovenia. For this purpose, we will establish an electronic system (e-centre), that will enable us monitor the incidence of injuries in Slovenian athletes, using various questionnaires. To achieve the second goal, we will design freely available exercise protocols for prevention and late rehabilitation of the 5-10 most common acute and chronic injuries that occur in sports games (e.g. thigh muscle injuries, ankle sprains, anterior cruciate ligament injury, groin pain, anterior knee pain, inflammation of the tibia, etc.). The incidence of injuries in sports games is very high (Bahr and Engebretsen, 2009) which causes long absences from training and competitions (van Rosen et al., 2018), additional economic burden (Cumps et al., 2008) and reduced duration of athletes’ competitive careers (Niederer et al., 2018). There is no uniform register of injuries in Slovenia, while minor injuries and minor episodes of pain are often overlooked. With the help of e-questionnaires, we will establish an inventory of the history of injuries, and moreover, ongoing evaluation of injuries during the season / year or in even longer periods. Questionnaires will include a list of presumed risk factors (quantity, frequency and type of training), demographic data and other psychophysical and psychosocial variables (stress levels, sleep quantity and quality, etc.). With the help of freely available (online) prevention programs and return-to-sport field programs, we will help to eliminate muscle / movement imbalances and strengthen the quality of the movement patterns, in order to reduce the risk for chronic and acute injuries in sports games. There is no freely accessible online platform or collected programmes in the Slovene language with prevention and return-to-sport programs in Slovenia. Many clubs do not have adequate staff and professional support for successful and effective prevention, while athletes are often left to fend for themselves after acute treatment, which affects the success and speed of returning to the sports field. The added value of the e-centre and online programs will be the wide accessibility (computers and other electronic devices), ease of use and functionality that will enable easy and fast use to coaches, sports professionals, players and parents of young players. With appropriate promotion with the help of the Olympic Committee of Slovenia, the Football Association of Slovenia and the Basketball Association of Slovenia, we will enable the national promotion of programs and online questionnaires. This way, we will raise awareness of the importance of tracking sports injuries and the quality of implementation of prevention and return-to-sport programs. Prospective injury monitoring will allow us to monitor the effect of prevention programs and to create guidelines for further action.

The project is cofinanced by the Slovenian Sports Foundation.