Research summary · Injury prevention
Injury-prevention programmes in youth football
A review of randomised trials evaluates structured warm-up and injury-prevention programmes in child and adolescent football players.
- Publication year
- 2026
- First published online
- Publication type
- Systematic review and meta-analysis
- Journal
- PeerJ
- Population / context
- Children and adolescent football players
What the publication reports
Nine trials included 16,636 players and 1,248,381 exposure hours. The pooled evidence associated prevention programmes with fewer overall and lower-limb injuries; subgroup estimates suggested benefit in both children and adolescents.
Limits and interpretation
Programme content, reporting and outcome definitions varied, while some injury-specific analyses were underpowered. Pooled team-level effects do not guarantee protection for an individual player or identify a single optimal programme.
Read the source
Consult the original record for the full author list, methods, references, funding and competing-interest disclosures.
Effectiveness of sports injury prevention programs for adolescent and children football players: a meta-analysis and systematic review
Original publication / indexed recordPMID: 42254669DOI: 10.7717/peerj.21319Full text at the sourceReader discussion
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