Injury, illness, and mental health problems during the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup

Abstract

Our study aimed to describe the patterns and characteristics of injuries and illnesses incurred during the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 (FWWC2023). Team medical personnel recorded all injuries, illnesses, and mental health problems requiring medical attention, plus match and training exposure into a centralised FIFA database using recent consensus-based methodology. Of the 32 teams at FWWC2023, 26 teams participated in the study, including 536 of 742 players. A total of 161 medical-attention injuries (incidence rate (IR): 14.2 per 1000h [95% CI: 12.1 to 16.6]) and 59 time-loss injuries (IR: 5.2 per 1000h [CI: 4.0 to 6.7]) were reported. Time-loss match injury IR was 14.0 per 1000h [CI: 8.9 to 21.1] and training IR 2.2 per 1000h [CI: 1.3 to 3.3]. The knee and thigh were the most frequently injured locations, while the lower leg created the highest overall time-loss burden. Time-loss injuries were mostly reported from contact mechanisms (59%), particularly with an opponent. There were 41 medical-attention illnesses (IR: 4.2 per 1000 player-days [CI: 3 to 5.6]) and 8 time-loss illnesses (IR: 0.8 per 1000 player-days [CI: 0.3 to 1.6]) reported. Respiratory illnesses (16 medical-attention and 7 time-loss) were the most frequent, with a burden of 1.2 days lost per 1000 player days [CI: 0.4 to 2.2]. The IR of mental health problems was low (0.2 per 1000 player-days [CI: 0.02 to 0.7]). Compared to previous international tournaments of both sexes, injury incidence and burden at the FWWC2023 was low