Epidemiology of injuries in elite male and female futsal: a systematic review and meta-analysis

ABSTRACT

The main purpose of this study was to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis quantifying the incidence of injuries in futsal players. A systematic search was conducted using MEDLINE, PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus databases and subsequently, six studies (14 cohorts) were selected. Separate meta-analyses for male and female players were conducted using a Poisson random-effect regression model approach. The overall and match incidence rates in elite male futsal players were 6.8 (95% CI = 0.0–15.2) and 44.9 (95% CI = 17.2–72.6) injuries/1000 hours of exposure. Pooled training injury rate in male players was not calculated due to the lack of studies reporting training injuries in this cohort. For females, an overall, training and match incidence rates of 5.3 (95% CI = 3.5–7), 5.1 (95% CI = 2.7–7.6) and 10.3 (95% CI = 0.6–20.1) injuries/1000 hours of exposure were reported. In males, match incidence rate in International tournaments was 8.5 times higher than in national leagues (77.2 [95% CI = 60.0–94.5] vs 9.1 [95% CI = 0.0–19.3] for international tournaments and national leagues, respectively). Elite male and female futsal players are exposed to a substantial risk of sustaining injuries, especially during matches.

KEYWORDS:

• Injury incidence
• sports Injury
• injury prevention
• five-a-side football
• risk of injury

Acknowledgements

Iñaki Ruiz-Pérez were supported by predoctoral grant given by Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (FPI BES-2015-07200) from Spain. Francisco Ayala were supported by postdoctoral grant given by Seneca Foundation (postdoctoral fellowships funded by the regional subprogram focuses on the postdoctoral development, 20366/PD/17) from Spain.

Data sharing statement

The codebook can be obtained from the corresponding author on request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethical approval information

Not applicable.

Additional information

Funding

The authors declare that the study was not supported by any funding