The Injury/Illness Performance Project (IIPP): A Novel Epidemiological Approach for Recording the Consequences of Sports Injuries and Illnesses

Abstract

Background. Describing the frequency, severity, and causes of sports injuries and illnesses reliably is important for quantifying the
risk to athletes and providing direction for prevention initiatives. Methods. Time-loss and/or medical-attention definitions have
long been used in sports injury/illness epidemiology research, but the limitations to these definitions mean that some events are
incorrectly classified or omitted completely,where athletes continue to train and compete at high levels but experience restrictions in
their performance. Introducing a graded definition of performance-restrictionmay provide a solution to this issue. Results. Results
from the Great Britain injury/illness performance project (IIPP) are presented using a performance-restriction adaptation of the
accepted surveillance consensus methodologies. The IIPP involved 428 Olympic athletes (males: 250; female: 178) from 10 Great
Britain Olympic sports between September 2009 and August 2012. Of all injuries (𝑛 = 565), 216 were classified as causing time-loss,
346 as causing performance-restriction, and 3 were unclassified. For athlete illnesses (𝑛 = 378), the majority (𝑃 < 0.01) resulted in
time-loss (270) compared with performance-restriction (101) (7 unclassified). Conclusions. Successful implementation of prevention
strategies relies on the correct characterisation of injury/illness risk factors. Including a performance-restriction classification could
provide a deeper understanding of injuries/illnesses and better informed prevention initiatives.