Systematic review of screening tools for common soccer injuries and their risk factors.
Raphael Christopher, Corlia Brandt, Natalie Benjamin-Damon
PMID 33824917WHAT IT FOUND
Screening tools like the Functional Movement Screen and Landing Error Scoring System showed high sensitivity and specificity for predicting soccer injuries in the included studies.
However, the Functional Movement Screen failed to predict injuries in veteran players and showed only minimal association with physical performance in youth players.
Key findings
01The pooled analysis of three studies found high sensitivity and specificity for screening tools, with an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.68 for sensitivity and 0.64 for specificity.
02The Functional Movement Screen showed minimal association with physical performance variables in youth players and was limited in predicting injuries among veteran footballers.
03The Landing Error Scoring System and conventional hamstring-to-quadriceps ratio were identified as tools with high accuracy for predicting anterior cruciate ligament and hamstring injuries, respectively.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
Only three of the ten included studies provided enough data for the meta-analysis, which limits the generalizability of the pooled sensitivity and specificity estimates. The review only included studies published from 2000 onwards, which may introduce publication bias. Many of the available studies on this topic had low methodological quality and were excluded, leaving a small pool of evidence. The included studies used different variations of the same screening tools (e.g., different items for the FMS), making direct comparison difficult. The authors claim high accuracy based on ICC values of 0.68 and 0.64, which are typically considered moderate rather than high in diagnostic testing contexts.
Declared interests
The source of funding was not reported by any of the included studies. The authors of the review did not declare conflicts of interest in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume the Functional Movement Screen is a universal predictor for all soccer injuries. The review found it failed to predict injuries in veteran players and showed minimal association with physical performance in youth players, despite the pooled analysis suggesting overall high accuracy for screening tools.