Due to copyright issues, an electronic copy of the thesis must be ordered from the faculty. For the faculty to have time to process the order, the order must be received by the faculty at the latest 2 days before the public defence. Orders received later than 2 days before the defence will not be processed. After the public defence, please address any inquiries regarding the thesis to the candidate.
Trial Lecture – time and place
See Trial Lecture.
Adjudication committee
- First opponent: Associate Professor Frida Eek, Lund University, Sweden
- Second opponent: Professor Elizabeth A. Arendt, University of Minnesota, United States
- Third member and chair of the evaluation committee: Professor II Asbjørn Årøen, University of Oslo
Chair of the Defence
Professor II Torild Skrivarhaug, University of Oslo
Principal Supervisor
Senior Consultant Ove Talsnes, Innlandet Hospital Trust
Summary
Ice hockey players are at high risk of acute time-loss injuries, but as the majority of previous epidemiological studies in elite ice hockey have used traditional sports injury surveillance methods and a time loss or medical attention injury definition, little is known about the burden of all health problems in ice hockey.
The aim of this dissertation was to investigate the magnitude of all health problems in male professional and junior elite ice hockey players, and to analyze potential risk factors for health problems expressed through level of physical fitness, and training and game load.
The dissertation is based on two separate research projects: two prospective cohort studies on professional and junior elite ice hockey players.
We found that 40% of professional and 25% of junior players reported symptoms from an injury or illness, and 20% of professional and 16% of junior players experienced health problems with a substantial negative impact on training and performance, at any given time.
We used a surveillance method designed to capture the full extent of all health problems, including illnesses and overuse injuries. Nevertheless, our data showed that acute injuries represented the major health problem. Traditional injury surveillance methods, based on time loss, may therefore be sufficient for the registration of injuries in ice hockey. However, our registrations did capture a greater burden from overuse injuries than traditional injury registration methods. In our study, low physical fitness did not appear to represent a risk factor for injury or illness in professional ice hockey players. Similarly, training and game load did not appear to represent risk factors for acute or overuse injuries among junior elite ice hockey players.
Additional information
Contact the research support staff.