Efficacy of Multi-Component Exercise-Based Injury Prevention Programs on Injury Risk Among Footballers of All Age Groups: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Background Playing football is associated with a high risk of injury. Injury prevention is a priority as injuries not only negatively impact health but also potentially performance. Various multi-component exercise-based injury prevention programs for football players have been examined in studies. Objective We aimed to investigate the efcacy of multi-component exercise-based injury prevention programs among footballers of all age groups in comparison to a control group. Methods We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized and cluster-randomized controlled trials. CINAHL, Cochrane, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science databases were searched from inception to June 2022. The following inclusion criteria were used for studies to determine their eligibility: they (1) include football (soccer) players; (2) investigate the preventive efect of multi-component exercise-based injury prevention programs in football; (3) contain original data from a randomized or cluster-randomized trial; and (4) investigate football injuries as the outcome. The risk of bias and quality of evidence were assessed using the Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool and the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE), respectively. The outcome measures were the risk ratio (RR) between the intervention and the control group for the overall number of injuries and body region-specifc, contact, and non-contact injuries sustained during the study period in training and match play. Results Fifteen randomized and cluster-randomized controlled trials with 22,177 players, 5080 injuries, and 1,587,327 exposure hours fulflled the inclusion criteria and reported the required outcome measures. The point estimate (RR) for the overall number of injuries was 0.71 (95% confdence interval [CI] 0.59–0.85; 95% prediction interval [PI] 0.38–1.32) with very low-quality evidence. The point estimate (RR) for lower limb injuries was 0.82 (95% CI 0.71–0.94; 95% PI 0.58–1.15) with moderate-quality evidence; for hip/groin injuries, the RR was 0.56 (95% CI 0.30–1.05; 95% PI 0.00–102.92) with lowquality evidence; for knee injuries, the RR was 0.69 (95% CI 0.52–0.90; 95% PI 0.31–1.50) with low-quality evidence; for ankle injuries, the RR was 0.73 (95% CI 0.55–0.96; 95% PI 0.36–1.46) with moderate-quality evidence; and for hamstring injuries, the RR was 0.83 (95% CI 0.50–1.37) with low-quality evidence. The point estimate (RR) for contact injuries was 0.70 (95% CI 0.56–0.88; 95% PI 0.40–1.24) with moderate-quality evidence, while for non-contact injuries, the RR was 0.78 (95% CI 0.55–1.10; 95% PI 0.25–2.47) with low-quality evidence. Conclusions This systematic review and meta-analysis indicated that the treatment efect associated with the use of multicomponent exercise-based injury prevention programs in football is uncertain and inconclusive. In addition, the majority of the results are based on low-quality evidence. Therefore, future high-quality trials are needed to provide more reliable evidence. Clinical Trial Registration PROSPERO CRD42020221772

Efficacy of a new injury prevention programme (FUNBALL) in young male football (soccer) players: a cluster-randomised controlled trial

Objectives To evaluate the efficacy of a new multicomponent, exercise-based injury prevention programme in football players 13–19 years old. Methods Two-arm cluster-randomised controlled trial with clubs as the unit of randomisation. 55 football teams from Kosovo of the under 15, under 17 and under 19 age groups were randomly assigned to the intervention (INT; 28 teams) or the control group (CON; 27 teams) and were followed for one football season (August 2021–May 2022). The INT group performed the ’FUNBALL’ programme after their usual warm-up at least twice per week, while the CON group followed their usual training routine. The primary outcome measure was the overall number of football-related injuries. Secondary outcomes were region-specific injuries of the lower limbs (hip/groin, thigh, knee, lower leg, ankle and foot) and injury severity. Results 319 injuries occurred, 132 in the INT and 187 in the CON group. The INT group used the ’FUNBALL’ programme in 72.2% of all training sessions, on average 2.2 times per week. There was a significantly lower incidence in the INT group regarding the overall number of injuries (incidence rate ratio (IRR) 0.69, 95%CI 0.55 to 0.87), the number of thigh injuries (IRR 0.62, 95%CI 0.39 to 0.98), of moderate (time loss between 7 and 28 days) (IRR 0.65, 95%CI 0.44 to 0.97) and of severe injuries (time loss >28 days) (IRR 0.51, 95%CI 0.28 to 0.91). Conclusion The ’FUNBALL’ programme reduced the incidence of football-related injuries among male adolescent football players, and its regular use for injury prevention in this population is recommended. Trial registration number NCT05137015

Accuracy and Speed of Emotion Recognition With Face Masks

Wearing face masks is one of the important actions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 among people around the world. Nevertheless, social interaction is limited via masks, and this impacts the accuracy and speed of emotional perception. In the present study, we assess the impact of mask-wearing on the accuracy and speed of emotion recognition. Fifty people (female n = 39, male n = 11) aged 19–28 participated in the study (M = 21.1 years). We used frontal photos of a Kosova woman who belonged to the same participants’ age group, with a grey background. Twelve different pictures were used that showed the emotional states of fear, joy, sadness, anger, neutrality, and disgust, in masked and unmasked conditions. The experiment was conducted in a controlled laboratory setting. Participants were faster for identifying emotions like joy (1.507 ms) and neutral (1.971 ms). The participants were more accurate (emotions identification) in unmasked faces (M = 85.7%) than in masked faces (M = 73.8%), F(1,98) = 20.73, MSE = 1027.66, p ≤ .001, partial η² = 0.17. Masks make confusion and reduce the accuracy and speediness of emotional detection. This may have a notable impact on social interactions among peoples