have noted the importance of compliance, but not
reported it.13–18 Others have reported compliance,
but not linked it to an injury prevention effect
estimate.19–26 Finally, some studies have linked
compliance to an effectiveness estimate.27–32
We thus have limited data on the relationship
between compliance and effectiveness.
Furthermore, when injury prevention measures
are embedded into team training sessions, the
compliance of the team is likely to depend greatly
on the motivation, choices and actions of the head
coach. We therefore determined to what degree an
intervention is accepted and adopted by coaches.
Recording individual participation, on the other
hand, reveals the rate of uptake and actual usage
of the intervention for each player. Recording
team and player compliance together will provide
detailed data on the overall compliance with the
intervention (fi gure 1).
The primary aim of this study was to characterise
the compliance of youth teams and players
using an injury prevention training programme
and to examine whether high compliance correlated
with lower injury risk. We also wanted to
identify coaches’ attitudes towards injury prevention
training and to examine whether their
attitudes were associated with the compliance or
the risk of injury within their teams.