Samenvatting

Introduction – Prevention programmes have been shown to have a positive effect on prevention of injury, however, stretching has limited evidence of effectiveness in preventing injury. This systematic review was undertaken to examine the evidence that stretching prevention protocol has demonstrated effectiveness as a means of reducing SRIs.
Method – Three electronic databases were searched by two reviewers to identify randomised and controlled clinical trials comparing the effectiveness of stretching to either a different intervention or a control group. Studies measuring the rate of injury were included. When an article met the inclusion criteria, it was appraised using the PEDro scale.
Result – There were nine moderate-to-high quality trial studies which met the inclusion criteria. These studies contained athletes participants, from recreational to semi-professional level, in various sports. Stretching intervention was compared to either eccentric or strength or stabilisation or control group. Some studies showed significant decrease of injury whereas others did not. To enhance understanding of this phenomenon, different confounder factors were described, namely stretching duration, stretching frequency, stretching timing, the rate of overall and specific injuries and, the rate of acute and overuse injuries.
Conclusion – The results support the hypothesis that stretching prevention protocol was effective in reducing sport-related acute injuries but not overall injury rate. Further research is required to confirm this hypothesis.