Incidence of penalty corner injuries in international field hockey

ABSTRACT

Field hockey penalty corners (PCs) put players at potential risk for injuries. This study evaluated the incidence of PC-related injuries with special regards to head injuries. Video sequences provided by the Fédération Internationale de Hockey (FIH) of 295 matches in 11 elite field hockey tournaments (2015–2016) were analysed for overall injuries and PC-related injuries in detail. In total, 13.9% of all match injuries (49/352 injuries) occurred in relation to a PC, accounting for 7.1 PC-related injuries per 1000 player match hours (95% CI 4.4–9.9). There were 11 head injuries afflicting six defenders and five attackers. One head injury was related to a direct hit by a ball (drag flick). This study provides the first data on PC-related injuries in elite field hockey. The recorded numbers and mechanisms of PC-related injuries should be used as a baseline for further studies and potential rule adaptations.

KEYWORDS:

• Video
• elite field hockey
• head injury
• drag flick
• concussion

Availability of data

This manuscript contains materials created and compiled by the Fédération Internationale de Hockey (FIH). As such, authors do not have the right to share these data. These data are only available upon request made directly to the Fédération Internationale de Hockey (FIH).

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

There was no funding of this study.