2026/01/01 by Khaled Trabelsi, Omar Boukhris, Souhail Chebbi +7
Medicine · #Spinal Cord Injury Research #Traumatic Brain Injury Research #Traumatic Brain Injury and Neurovascular Disturbances
paper · pdf · doi:10.5114/biolsport.2026.161108
openalex publication_date 2026/01/01 · openalex created_date 2026/07/14 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/15
This umbrella review aimed to systematically evaluate and synthesize evidence from published systematic reviews on the effectiveness of primary prevention strategies for sport-related concussion (SRC) in athletes, and to identify areas of uncertainty relevant to policy and practice.A comprehensive search of the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Epistemonikos, ERIC, PsycINFO, PubMed, Scopus, SPORTDiscus, and Web of Science was conducted from 2001 to April 2025, with an updated search in November 2025.Peerreviewed systematic reviews, with or without meta-analyses, assessing primary prevention strategies to reduce SRC incidence in competitive athletes of any age or sex were eligible.Interventions included rule or policy changes, protective equipment, educational programs and training-based strategies.Twenty-five systematic reviews were included, eight of which contained meta-analyses; all were rated as critically low quality using the AMSTAR-2 tool.Rule and policy changes, particularly the disallowance of body checking in youth ice hockey, demonstrated the most consistent evidence for reducing SRC incidence.Meta-analyses evaluating mouthguards and headgear showed substantial overlap of primary studies and inconsistent effects.Educational interventions and training-based programs, including structured warm-up programs such as FIFA 11+ Kids, produced inconclusive findings.Evidence specific to female athletes was limited and insufficient to support any particular prevention strategy.Overall, rule and policy changes that reduce exposure to high-risk contact currently have the strongest supporting evidence for SRC prevention, whereas evidence for equipment, education and training remains mixed.Given the critically low methodological quality of existing reviews, higher-quality evidence syntheses and robust primary studies are urgently needed.