Injury risk assessment using the functional movement screen in college physical education majors: a prospective cohort study

Objective This study aims to explore the application significance of the Functional Movement Screen (FMS) in the scenario of sports injury risk assessment for students majoring in physical education. On the basis of accurately identifying students’ deficiencies in movement function, it further analyzes the corresponding relationship between FMS data and the level of sports injury risk. Methods This manuscript is reported in accordance with the STROBE (Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology) statement for cohort studies. The completed STROBE checklist is provided as Supplementary Material (Supplementary File 1). In this prospective cohort study, 355 physical education majors completed a baseline standardized FMS test and were prospectively monitored for sports injuries over one semester. Using GraphPad Prism 9.5.0 software, a Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve was constructed based on the total FMS scores to realize the assessment of sports injury risk. Meanwhile, a binary logistic regression analysis was adopted to explore the association between the results of the 7 tests included in the FMS and sports injury risk, and the Odds Ratio (OR) was used to quantitatively evaluate the relative impact of relevant factors on sports injury risk. Results Data analysis yielded the following findings: (1) The average FMS score of the subjects was 15.623; (2) The ROC curve of the subjects identified a threshold of 14.5 points; (3) The Area Under the Curve (AUC) was 0.8338, indicating diagnostic significance (with a sensitivity of 0.6538, a specificity of 0.8889, and an OR of 9.17). The analysis revealed that when the FMS score was 14.5, the Youden's index reached its maximum value of 0.5427. Since sensitivity is prioritized higher in assessing sports injury risk using total FMS scores, a moderate increase in the number of false positives was deemed acceptable in this study. In addition, as FMS scores are required to be integers, 15 points were finally determined as the optimal cut-off value for judging sports injury risk in this study. Based on the 15-point criterion, there were 160 subjects with a total FMS score ≤15 and 195 subjects with a total FMS score >15. Among them, the risk of sports injury for subjects with a total FMS score <15 was 9 times that of those with a score >15. After adjusting for training volume, previous injury, and sport type, the association remained significant (adjusted OR = 8.21). Conclusion A total FMS score of ≤15 was associated with a significantly higher risk of sports injury (OR = 9.17) among physical education majors, suggesting its utility as a screening tool. Students with lower FMS scores have a higher risk of injury during sports compared to those with higher scores.