Educating and promoting athletes' health protection through infographics on injury and illness prevention during an international competition: a prospective study during the 2024 European Athletics Championships

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the feasibility, perceived relevance and usefulness of providing injury and illness prevention information through infographics to athletes and medical teams before and during an international athletics championship, and its potential impact on injury and illness risk during the same championship.

Methods: We conducted a prospective cohort study during the 2024 European Athletics Championships in Roma with (1) dissemination of infographics, (2) data collection on perceived relevance (yes/no) and perceived usefulness (score from 0 to 100) of infographics among athletes and medical teams using an online questionnaire and (3) data collection by medical teams of newly incurred injuries and illnesses among athletes during the championship.

Results: Among the 124 athletes who completed the questionnaire, 35.5% had access to the infographics, of which 86.4% found the information relevant, and their perceived usefulness scores to reduce their risk were 51.8±23.9 (range: 2.9-100.0) for injuries and 50.6±23.0 (range: 0.0-100.0) for illnesses. Among the registered physicians and physiotherapists, 44 replied to the survey, 70.5% had access to the infographics, of which 83.9% found it relevant, and their perceived usefulness scores to reduce risk were 55.6±28.0 (range: 6.0-100.0) for injuries and 52.9±28.0 (range: 0.0-100.0) for illnesses. The logistic regression showed that a higher perceived usefulness score was associated with a lower risk of in-championship injury (OR 0.950; 95% CI 0.877 to 0.996).

Conclusions: Promoting the health protection of athletes through infographics on injury and illness prevention in the context of international athletics championships was feasible and may represent an additional prevention approach.

Keywords: Epidemiology; Illness; Injuries; Prevention; Surveillance.

Figure 1. Flow chart of the targeted study population of registered athletes and registered team physicians and team physiotherapists, studied population and results regarding access to the infographics, perceived relevance and perceived usefulness during the 2024 European Athletics Championships.

Figure 2. Number of injuries per 1000 registered athletes with 95% CI, number of illnesses per 1000 registered athletes with 95% CI, percentage of athletes covered by the medical teams participating in the injury and illness data collection, and percentage of response rate for the daily injury and illness report forms for the medical teams participating in the injury and illness data collection, during the six previous European Athletics Outdoor Championships (EOC) from 2012 to 2024.