Background. There is an increased risk for head and facial injury in contact sports such as ice hockey and football (Marar, McIlvain, Fields, & Comstock, 2012). These sports require the use of protective helmets. Helmets have... [ view full abstract ]
Background. There is an increased risk for head and facial injury in contact sports such as ice hockey and football (Marar, McIlvain, Fields, & Comstock, 2012). These sports require the use of protective helmets. Helmets have been shown to reduce the risk of severe and catastrophic brain injuries (Williams et al., 2014; McIntosh & McCrory, 2005). However, participants continue to sustain head and facial injuries (Greenhill et al., 2016; Kontos et al., 2013, 2016; Lawrence et al., 2015; Williams et al., 2014). One possible reason is helmet fit. At higher levels of play (i.e. college and professional levels), there is often a professional available to fit the athlete’s helmet (Williams et al., 2014). In youth sports, the primary responsibility of the helmet fitting typically falls on parents and coaches who may or may not have proper training (Williams et al., 2014). Without training, parents and coaches are left to their best judgement when fitting the protective helmet which can ultimately injure their child. While some studies have looked into youth athletics, data on injuries to youth athletes are not commonly reported to injury surveillance systems, meaning, the actual incidence of injury is unknown (Gilchrist, Thomas, Xu, McGuire, & Coronado, 2011). For this reason, it is believed that injury incidence is higher than current data suggests (Gilchrist et al., 2011). Knowing that there is a lack of knowledge on the part of those in charge of youth athletes, it is recommended that they are educated on helmet fitting procedures (Williams et al., 2014). Purpose. To determine 1) the prevalence of ill-fitted helmets in youth ice hockey athletes and 2) if parent education regarding helmet fitting procedures will reduce the prevalence of ill-fitted helmets. Methods. Youth ice hockey athletes aged 7-13 and one of their parents will volunteer for this study. This study contains 2 testing visits. After signing informed consent and assent forms, parents will fill out an informational survey, and the child’s helmet will be checked for proper fit. Following the fit check, parents will be given a handout explaining why helmet fit is important, facts about head injuries, and a step by step process describing how to properly fit a helmet. There will be a 2 week period between meetings. At the second meeting, the parent will be given a questionnaire asking if they utilized the handout and checked their child’s helmet. The athlete’s helmet will be checked again using the previous checklist. Differences from pre to post parent education will be analyzed. Results & Conclusions. Data collection is ongoing and the results will be presented at the time of the conference.
