Perception, attitudes and practices of injury prevention among football players

Introduction. Playing football is associated with the risk of injury, leading to short- and long-term health consequences. The aim of this study was to analyze perception, attitudes and practices of injury prevention among football players. Material and methods. The research covered 100 men aged 18-26, practicing football in randomly selected fourth-league clubs in the Podkarpackie Voivodeship, Poland The research was carried out using the diagnostic survey method. The tool of choice were an author's 3-part survey questionnaire. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to analyze the results. Results. The level of preventive behaviors was low in 30% of the players, medium in 41% of the players, and high in 29% of the players. There were statistically significant differences in the level of health behaviors. Football players who re-injured had a higher level of health-related behaviors. Conclusions. Most football players are inadequately informed about proper injury prevention methods. The implementation of educational programs for football players and coaches may be one of the directions of personalized strategies to reduce the risk of sport-related musculosceletal injuries in football players.