Sport Without Injury ProgrammE (SWIPE) – promoting safe participation in community level sports

The main purpose of this 4-year research program is to investigate approaches to reduce injury risks and negative health consequences from partaking in community level sports. We use the evidence-based exercise injury prevention program Knee Control+, developed in our research group, as model.

The project has three research packages that combine qualitative and quantitative designs:We study facilitators and barriers to exercise prevention program use among athletes and coaches in interview studies to inform development of a user-centered mobile phone application for sport injury prevention.

We evaluate program adoption and injury risk mitigation in an effectiveness-implementation hybrid trial cluster-RCT.We study coaches’ and athletes’ perceptions of pain in relation to sports, use of pain medication, and strategies to manage pain, in qualitative studies, and map the prevalence of pain and pain medication use over a full season in a prospective study.We study effects of the injury prevention exercises on neuromuscular control in athletes using advanced movement analysis.

Our aim is to determine exercise effect mechanisms on intrinsic risk factors for injury.

The likely influence of age and sex is also investigated.Our goal is to optimize reach, adoption, and long-term adherence to injury prevention exercise training.

Wide-spread use of effective injury prevention training will reduce the injury burden in sports and reduce associated costs for society.