Perceiving, reporting and managing an injury–perspectives from national team football players, coaches, and health professionals

Background: Injury perceptions and related risk-mitigating interventions are context-dependent. Despite this, most injury surveillance systems are not context-specific as they do not integrate end-users perspectives. Purpose: To explore how Maltese national team football players, coaches, and health professionals perceive a football-related injury and how their context influences their perceptions and behaviours towards reporting and managing a football injury. Methods: 13 semi-structured interviews with Maltese female and male national team football players (n = 7), coaches (n = 3), and health professionals (n = 3) were conducted. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Results: Three themes were identified: (1) How do I perceive an injury? Consisted of various constructs of a sports injury, yet commonly defined based on performance limitations. (2) How do I deal with an injury? Encapsulated the process of managing the injury (3) What influences my perception, reporting and management of an injury? Comprised personal and contextual factors that influenced the perception and, consequently, the management of an injury. Conclusion: Performance limitations should be used as part of future injury definitions in injury surveillance systems. Human interaction should be involved in all the processes of an injury surveillance framework, emphasising its active role to guide the injury management process.