PROJECT PARTNERS
VeiligheidNL
Royal Dutch Lawn and Tennis Association
FUNDING
The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development
BACKGROUND
Exercise-based injury prevention strategies in sports have been frequently evaluated. A meta-analysis of 36 randomized controlled trials has shown that most of these interventions are effective in reducing the number of injuries. The majority of trials have been conducted in team sports, such as basketball, volleyball, football and tackle collision ball sports.
For individual sports, the literature is limited to running athletes. Only three randomised controlled trials for exercise-based prevention in runners have been published, which all showed no significant reduction in injury rates. Given the global individual sports participation exceeds team participation, the lack of evidence-based prevention intervention is a call for action. Tennis is one of the most practised individual sports in the world. Estimates show that approximately 75 million people practice tennis worldwide. Playing tennis has proven cardiovascular health benefits, and is even associated with decreased all-cause mortality. The downside is the injury rate of up to 3.0 injuries per 1,000 hours of tennis.
These injuries have an important (economic) impact. A recent Dutch report11 showed that 43% of the injuries among tennis players were treated (para)medically, leading to an emergency room treatment cost of €3.6 million. Indirect costs due to loss of work were estimated at €8.3 million. When taking into account that approximately 800 000 people play tennis in the Netherlands, impact of tennis-related injuries can be considered significant.
OBJECTIVES
To developed, using a systematic approach guided by the KTS, a tennis-specific app-based injury prevention programme, and to evaluate its effectiveness in a randomised controlled trial.
