Perceived association between football playing surfaces and sports injuries. A survey among players of division two clubs in the Volta Region.

Abstract

Football is a sport associated with high injury occurrence. The sport is characterized by short sprints, rapid acceleration or deceleration, turning, jumping, kicking, and tackling which makes the players vulnerable to injury. The study was conducted to unravel the perceived association between football playing surfaces and sports injuries among division-two football clubs in the Volta Region. Using descriptive survey design, the study was conducted on 210 participants from division-two clubs with an average age range between 15 and 20. Convenience sampling technique was used to select the sample for the study. Participants completed questionnaire that entails types of injuries likely to associate with different football playing surfaces, playing surface properties that are perceived to increase the risk of injury and the playing surface players perceive to cause the most sports injuries. Data was analysed with SPSS version 20 and results presented in frequencies and percentages. Results indicates that common injuries like joint pain/soreness, bruises, cuts/abrasions, back pain, fracture, dislocation, ligament damage, and shin splints were mostly associated with natural turf (62.2%) than artificial turf (37.8%). Again, playing surface properties such as hardness, abrasiveness, grass length, bumpiness, thickness of grass, and level of grip were perceived to increase the risk of injuries on natural turf than artificial turf. Results from research question three revealed that 76% of division-two players perceived injury rate to be more on natural playing surfaces than artificial playing surfaces. It was concluded that participants perceived sports injuries to be associated more with natural turf than artificial turf. I recommend that more research is carried out in other regions to ascertain how players perceive injury on playing surfaces so that expert decisions can be made to reduce the incidence of injuries caused by playing surfaces.