Headgear safety attitudes: a national survey of collegiate women's lacrosse stakeholders.

HEAD injury prevention; SPORTS injuries risk factors; SPORTS injury prevention; CROSS-sectional method; CRONBACH'S alpha; SAFETY hats; QUESTIONNAIRES; MULTIPLE regression analysis; KRUSKAL-Wallis Test; RACKET games; DESCRIPTIVE statistics; MANN Whitney U Test; CHI-squared test; ATTITUDE (Psychology); ODDS ratio; RISK perception; DATA analysis software; CONFIDENCE intervals; HEAD injuries; DISEASE risk factors

Controversy exists among collegiate lacrosse about the use of headgear and whether its use will facilitate greater risk compensation by players and thus contribute to unsafe gameplay. We aimed to characterize the attitudes of headgear among women's collegiate lacrosse stakeholders. A total of 190 women's lacrosse stakeholders (players: n = 87; coaches: n = 71; officials: n = 32) participated in this study. Participants completed a survey surrounding attitudes of headgear in women's lacrosse. Descriptives, multiple regressions, and Kruskal–Wallis analyses compared attitudes surrounding headgear among stakeholder groups. Scales of Headgear Affects Play (β = -0.38, p < 0.001) and Sports Development and Safety Practices (β = 0.26, p < 0.05) significantly predicted endorsement on Headgear Safety Attitudes Scale. Among players, Aesthetics (β = 0.51, p < 0.001) and Intention to Wear Headgear (β = 0.31, p < 0.05) predicted endorsement on Headgear Safety Attitudes Scale. Stakeholders did not agree if headgear should be worn in women's lacrosse. Items related to sports development, safety and potential changes in gameplay predicted attitudes to headgear safety among all participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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