ArticleBritish journal of sports medicine2004
Effectiveness of rugby headgear in preventing soft tissue injuries to the head: a case-control and video cohort study.
Article in British journal of sports medicine, 2004. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 41 citations in OpenAlex.
- Soft-shell headgear, concussion and injury prevention in youth team collision sports: a systematic review.BMJ open · 2021Pooled it
- Prevalence, incidence and risk factors for rugby-related injuries: A survey of the Safari Sevens tournament.The South African journal of physiotherapy · 2024Article
- Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV) After Concussion in Two Adolescent Players During a Rugby Game.Cureus · 2023Article
- Comparison of branded rugby headguards on their effectiveness in reducing impact on the head.BMJ open sport & exercise medicine · 2018Article
- Attitudes towards protective headgear in UK rugby union players.BMJ open sport & exercise medicine · 2017Article
- Epidemiology and location of rugby injuries treated in US emergency departments from 2004 to 2013.Open access journal of sports medicine · 2016Article
- Development of a skull/brain model for military wound ballistics studies.International journal of legal medicine · 2015Article
- Combining epidemiology and biomechanics in sports injury prevention research: a new approach for selecting suitable controls.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2011Review
- Rugby World Cup 2003 injury surveillance project.British journal of sports medicine · 2005Article
- Preventing head and neck injury.British journal of sports medicine · 2005Review
- Injuries sustained by rugby players presenting to United States emergency departments, 1978 through 2004.Journal of athletic trainingArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo determine if headgear use by rugby players was associated with a reduced risk of head or facial laceration, abrasion, or fracture.
methodsAn emergency department based case-control study in South Wales, UK, with cases being rugby players treated for superficial head and facial injuries and controls being their matched opponents during the game. A review of videos of the 41 games in the 1999 Rugby World Cup was also carried out to compare with the case-control study. Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were used to measure association between exposure (headgear wearing) and outcome (head and facial injuries).
resultsIn the case-control study, 164 pairs were analysed, with headgear worn by 12.8% of cases and 21.3% of controls. Headgear use was associated with substantial but non-significant reductions in superficial head (OR = 0.43, 95% CI 0.13 to 1.19) and facial (OR = 0.57, 95% CI 0.21 to 1.46) injuries. The video study followed 547 players over 41 games, during which there were 47 bleeding injuries to the head. Headgear use significantly reduced the risk of bleeding head injury in forwards (OR = 0.14, 95% CI 0.01 to 0.99, p = 0.02), but not in backs. There was also a higher risk of facial injury among forwards, but this was not significant.
conclusionsThe combined results suggest that headgear can prevent certain types of superficial head injuries in players at all levels of the game, but the evidence is strongest for superficial head injury in elite forwards. A randomised controlled trial would be the best way to study this further.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.