Barriers to Compliance in a Home-Based Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury Prevention Program in Female High School Athletes.

IMPORTANCE Supervised injury prevention programs can decrease injuries in female high school athletes. Research regarding home-based injury prevention programs is limited. OBJECTIVE To identify barriers to compliance with a home-based injury prevention program in rural Wisconsin female high school basketball players. DESIGN Cross-sectional study including participants from 9 rural Wisconsin high schools. Participants were instructed in appropriate exercise form and DVD use in a group-based format. Participants were instructed to perform the home-based program 3 times per week for 8 weeks. Participants then completed a survey regarding their program compliance. SETTING Exercise instruction and surveys were completed in the participant's high school gymnasium. PARTICIPANTS Female students in grades 9-12, who intended to play basketball, were invited to participate. Of the 175 eligible students, 66 enrolled in the study. INTERVENTION The intervention consisted of a DVD-based injury prevention program. MAIN OUTCOME Our hypothesis--that compliance with a home-based injury prevention program would be low--was established prior to study commencement. Outcome measures consisted of self-reported responses by participants. Statistics are descriptive. RESULTS Follow-up surveys were completed by 27 of 66 participants, with 50% reporting performing the injury prevention program 0-3 times per week. The reasons for low compliance included "I did not have time to do the program," followed by "I forgot to do the program." CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Wisconsin female high school basketball players demonstrated very low compliance with a home-based injury prevention program. This paper identifies barriers to compliance.