Elite player | A player who was elected to play in the highest division at the beginning of the season for u-16 and u-18 players, and to the highest and second highest division for senior players. |
Reportable injury | Any physical complaint sustained by a player that results from a handball match or handball training causing the player to miss part of or rest of the match or training session. |
Time-loss injury | A player being unable to take a full part in future handball15 training or match play. The term ‘future’ refers to any time after the onset of injury, including the day of injury. |
Overuse injury | An injury caused by repeated micro trauma without a single, identifiable event responsible for the injury. |
Traumatic injury | An injury resulting from a specific, identifiable event. |
Severity | Full absence: The number of days/weeks from the date of injury the players report having the same injury in the SMS-system (question 1), and report having no exposure time, before the player's return to full participation in team training and availability for match selection. If a player could not participate fully on the day of an injury, but was available on the next day, this was recorded as a time-loss injury with a severity of zero days.15 Partly absence: The number of days/weeks from the date of injury the players report having the same injury in the SMS-system (question 1), but where they still report having exposure time, before the player's return to full participation in team training and availability for match selection. |
Recurrent injury | An injury of the same type and at the same site as an index injury and which occurs after a player's return to full participation from the index injury.15 |
Previous injury | An injury before study start that have caused the player a total time-loss from handball activities for a minimum of 4 weeks. Irrespective of when they had had the injury before study start. |
Injury prevention training | Injury prevention training was in the questionnaire defined and described as balance training, specific jump training or training. |
National team | Players who were selected to the national senior and junior teams at study start. For u-16 players it also included players who were selected to participate in special talent group under the Danish Handball Federation. |