BokSmart - implementing a National Rugby Safety Programme.

BokSmart - South African rugby's national rugby safety and injury prevention program.

An evidence-driven approach to scrum law modifications in amateur rugby played in South Africa.

BACKGROUND In 2012, the South African Rugby Union (SARU) approved a new set of scrum laws for amateur rugby played in the country, to be implemented at the start of the 2013 rugby season. These law changes were primarily based on the relatively high proportion of scrum-related catastrophic injury data collected as part of the BokSmart National Rugby Safety Programme (BokSmart) over the precedin...

BokSmart: medical management of suspected serious acute spinal cord injuries

Injury to the spinal cord with paralysis during rugby is rare but remains an emotionally charged issue, especially at schoolboy level. The game has evolved over the years with rule changes to reduce injury risk. Scrums were originally perceived as the high-risk phase of play and rule changes in the early 1990s have reduced the number of scrums per game by as much as 40%. Over time the ferocity ...

Players’ and coaches’ knowledge and awareness of the BokSmart Safe Six injury prevention programme: an ecological cross-sectional questionnaire study

OBJECTIVES Rugby has a high injury incidence and therefore BokSmart introduced the Safe Six injury prevention programme in 2014 in an attempt to decrease this incidence. In 2015, BokSmart used a 'targeted marketing approach' to increase the awareness and knowledge of the Safe Six. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the change in the knowledge of coaches and players of the Safe Si...

The effectiveness of the nationwide BokSmart rugby injury prevention program on catastrophic injury rates.

Rugby Union ("rugby") participants have a higher than average risk of injury compared with participants of other popular team sports. BokSmart, a nationwide injury prevention program was launched in South Africa in mid-2009, with the goal of reducing catastrophic head/neck (serious) injuries in players. The program provides injury prevention information to coaches and referees. This study inves...