Effectiveness of Warm-Up Intervention Programs to Prevent Sports Injuries among Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Liyi Ding, Jianfeng Luo, Daniel M. Smith, Marcia Mackey, Haiqing Fu, Matthew Davis, Yanping Hu

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

Sports participation by children and adolescents often results in injuries. Therefore, injury prevention warm-up programs are imperative for youth sports safety. The purpose of this paper was to assess the effectiveness of Warm-up Intervention Programs (WIP) on upper and lower limb sports injuries through a systematic review and meta-analysis. Searches for relevant studies were performed on PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, SPORTDiscus, and Cochrane databases. Studies selected met the following criteria: original data; analytic prospective design; investigated a WIP and included outcomes for injury sustained during sports participation. Two authors as-sessed the quality of evidence using Furlan’s criteria. Comprehensive Meta-Analysis 3.3 software was used to process and analyze the outcome indicators of the literature. Across fifteen studies, the pooled point estimated injury rate ratio (IRR) was 0.64 (95% CI = 0.54–0.75; 36% reduction) while accounting for hours of risk exposure. Publication bias assessment suggested a 6% reduction in the estimate (IRR = 0.70, 95% CI = 0.60–0.82), and the prediction interval intimated that any study estimate could still fall between 0.34 and 1.19. Subgroup analyses identified one significant moderator that existed in the subgroup of compliance (p < 0.01) and might be the source of heterogeneity. Compared with the control group, WIPs significantly reduced the injury rate ratio of upper and lower limb sports injuries in children and adolescents.

Original languageEnglish
Article number6336
JournalInternational Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Volume19
Issue number10
DOIs
StatePublished - May 1 2022

Keywords

  • adolescents
  • children
  • sports activity
  • sports injuries
  • warm-up intervention program

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