Players' and parents' perceptions of injury in elite Northern Irish schools’ rugby – A qualitative study

Objectives: To explore schools' rugby players' and their parents’ perceptions of injury. Design: A qualitative study using focus groups. Setting: Schools who compete in the Ulster Schools’ Cup competition. Participants: 13 players and 9 parents. Outcome measures: A thematic analysis approach was used to examine players' and parents’ beliefs and attitudes towards injury, return to play and injury risk. Results: Findings suggest schools' rugby players and their parents are aware of injury risk in the schoolboy game. They are aware of concussion injury but are less aware of musculoskeletal injury. Parents' perceptions of injury are based on their experience of their sons’ injuries. Parents are unaware of return to play strategies for musculoskeletal injury. Conclusions: Schools' rugby players and their parents are aware of injury to some extent, however players' and parents’ knowledge and understanding of injury is based on and informed by personal experience, not the evidence base. Whist they are aware of injury, many players will seek to push their fears to the back of their mind. However, for those players who have suffered severe injury, they are concerned about the risk of reinjury.