Evaluating a standardised tool to explore the nature and extent of foot and ankle injuries in amateur and semi-professional footballers

Background: Most studies of football injuries include professional players and data have been collected in without a single validated, standardised tool. We aimed to develop a new standardised questionnaire for assessing injuries among non-professional footballers and pilot its use. Method: A questionnaire was developed using input from footballers, healthcare professionals and triangulation from the literature. The new tool was piloted among players representing amateurs and semi-professionals. Their comments were used iteratively to improve the instrument. Results: The development phase produced a 33-item questionnaire collecting quantitative and qualitative data. In the pilot phase, 42 questionnaires were distributed, 34 (81%) returned. Respondents reported total of 273 football-related injuries, 114 affecting the foot/ankle (70 at the ankle and 44 at the foot). In total, 44% of respondents had suffered one or more foot/ankle injuries in the past 12 months. Conclusion: We developed a new standardised tool which we found to be well-completed by young male footballers in semi-professional and amateur settings with an excellent response rate. Our results suggested that foot/ankle injuries were common, larger studies in non-professionals are needed to identify risk factors for injury and develop pragmatic advice for prevention.