Incidence, mechanisms, and severity of game-related college football injuries on FieldTurf versus natural grass: a 3-year prospective study
Meyers MC
The American journal of sports medicine · 58 citations
Review labels
Neutral facts our review recorded about how this study was done. They describe method, never whether we like the result.
How it was studied
- Design
- Cohort study (indexed by PubMed)
- Studied in
- People
- Main outcome
- Clinical events such as disease or death
Who paid for it
- Funding
- Funding not disclosed
Publication
- Published
- 2010-01-14 · Am J Sports Med · vol. 38 · issue 4 · pp. 687–697
- Publisher
- SAGE Publishing
- Cited
- 111 citations · more than 98% of similar papers · 7.0× the field average
- Impact
- Top 10% most cited in its field
- References
- 67 works
- Access
- Paywalled
- Research areas
- Sports injuries and prevention · Turfgrass Adaptation and Management · Tendon Structure and Treatment
- Keywords
- Incidence (geometry), Football, Athletes, Medicine, Confidence interval, Injury prevention, Poison control, Team sport, Demography, Physical therapy, Emergency medicine, Internal medicine, Geography, Mathematics
- MeSH
- humans, poaceae, craniocerebral trauma, athletic injuries, ankle injuries, knee injuries, trauma severity indices, incidence, cohort studies, prospective studies, surface properties, football, shoulder injuries
1 author
From US
- Michael C. Meyers · correspondingMontana State University
Abstract
Background
Numerous injuries have been attributed to playing on artificial turf. More recently, FieldTurf was developed to duplicate the playing characteristics of natural grass. No long-term studies have been conducted comparing game-related collegiate football injuries between the 2 playing surfaces.
Hypothesis
Collegiate athletes do not experience any difference in the incidence, mechanisms, and severity of game-related injuries between FieldTurf and natural grass.
Study design
Cohort study; Level of evidence, 2.
Methods
Twenty-four universities were evaluated over 3 competitive seasons for injury incidence, injury category, time of injury, injury time loss, player position, injury mechanism, primary type of injury, grade and anatomical location of injury, type of tissue injured, trauma (head, knee, and shoulder), and environmental factors.
Results
In sum, 465 collegiate games were evaluated for game-related football injuries sustained on FieldTurf or natural grass during 3 seasons. Overall, 230 team games (49.5%) were played on FieldTurf versus 235 team games (50.5%) played on natural grass. A total of 2253 injuries were documented, with 1050 (46.6%) occurring during play on FieldTurf, and 1203 (53.4%) on natural grass. Multivariate analysis per 10 team games indicated significantly lower total injury incidence rates, F(3, 2249) = 3.468, P = .016, n - beta = 0.778, on FieldTurf, 45.7 (95% confidence interval [CI], 44.2-46.3), versus natural grass, 51.2 (95% CI, 49.8-51.7). Significantly lower minor injury incidence rates, 38.0 (95% CI, 36.9-38.5) versus 39.9 (95% CI, 39.1-40.0, P = .001), substantial injury incidence rates, 5.0 (95% CI, 4.3-5.6) versus 7.2 (95% CI, 6.6-7.7, P = .020), and severe injury incidence rates, 2.7 (95% CI, 2.1-3.3) versus 4.1 (95% CI, 3.5-4.1; P = .049), were documented on FieldTurf versus natural grass, respectively. Multivariate analyses also indicated significantly less trauma on FieldTurf when comparing injury time loss, injury situation, grade of injury, injuries under various field conditions, and temperature. No significant differences in head, knee, or shoulder trauma were observed between playing surfaces.
Conclusion
FieldTurf is in many cases safer than natural grass. It must be reiterated, however, that the findings of this study may be generalizable to only this level of competition. Because this study is still in the early stages, investigation is ongoing.
Abstract via Europe PMC. Copyright remains with the authors or publisher.
Community trust
Loading…
How much do you trust this study's findings?
Comments
Sign in to rate, comment on or flag this study.Sign inSomething wrong here?
Flag this study if its information, labels or funding look wrong. An editor reviews every flag.
Sign in to rate, comment on or flag this study.Sign inEducational information about published research. Not medical advice, and not a recommendation to start or stop anything.