ABSTRACT
Objective
Adequate conditioning results from various physical, environmental, and psychological factors in sports activities. In this study, we aimed to clarify the concurrence and relevance of injuries, psychological problems, and sleep disturbance in university football (soccer) players. Biomechanical characteristics and risk factors for those injuries were also investigated.
Methods
Overall, 1,084 university football players participated in this cross-sectional study using a web-based health history questionnaire. Assessments were made via the presence of injuries for physical problems, the Athlete Psychological Strain Questionnaire (APSQ) for psychological problems, and the Athlete Sleep Screening Questionnaire (ASSQ) for sleep difficulties.
Results
There were 200 (19%) athletes with injuries; 413 (38%) of these were APSQ-positive, 246 (23%) were ASSQ-positive, and 468 (43%) athletes had no physical, psychological, or sleep problems. APSQ-positive respondents were significantly more likely to have a current injury than those who were APSQ-negative. No significant difference was observed between the number of ASSQ-positive and -negative respondents and current injuries. Those with sleep problems were significantly more likely to have psychological problems.
Conclusion
More than 60% of university football players had one or more physical, psychological, or sleep problems. Players may have co-occurring problems, and it is important to address them for these athletes to reach peak performance.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the university football clubs for participating in this study and all the staff of each club for their support in sharing the survey with their members. We would like to thank Editage (www.editage.com) for English language editing.
Disclosure statement
The authors report no conflicts of interest.
Data availability statement
Data cannot be shared publicly because of ethical restrictions. Publishing data sets are not covered by the informed consent provided by the study participants, which was approved by the ethics committee of the Teikyo Heisei University Ethical Committee. The data are not owned by a third party. Non-author contact information for the body imposing the restrictions upon the data, to which data access requests can be sent, is the Teikyo Heisei University Ethical Committee ([email protected]).
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.