What do we know about breast injury among female rugby players? – Kilian Bibby.

Women’s Rugby Union is on a continuous rise with an increase of registered female players of 28% since 2017, 2.7 million current female players worldwide and over 25% of the global player population being female.

The current literature unfortunately doesn’t mirror this significant international and relevant population of female players – and this research imbalance is something we aim to reduce.

Survey link:

https://unioflimerick.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3DhrDxbI5HAgPfU

We are currently investigating factors affecting the women’s game, in particular the impact and incidence of breast injury. This includes exercise-induced breast pain (may occur during running or jumping activities) and impact-related breast pain due to direct contact (i.e. with another player, contact event, ball or ground). For this investigation we decided to use an international survey to learn more about breast pain and injury among female rugby players (link at the bottom of this blog post). Our aim is to reach as many female Rugby Union 15s and seven’s players as possible worldwide, investigating different aspects of breast health including:

–     Demographics

–     Knowledge, education, and beliefs on breast pain and injury

–     Exercise-induced breast pain

–     Impact related breast injuries

This work forms part of the Irish Rugby Injury Surveillance program (IRIS) in which my PhD research is embedded. The IRIS project is an initiative of the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) and to date has explored injury related research which aids in the development and implementation of future evidence-based injury prevention strategies in order to minimise injury risk and enhance player welfare. The IRFU will lead the distribution of the survey nationally through various channels.

So why did we decide to focus on breast injuries of various nature? The answer is simple as there are currently only four existing rugby injury surveillance systems. Of those four, two included the monitoring of injuries to female players, neither of which monitored breast injuries. I recently presented these findings at the All-Ireland Postgraduate conference in Cork on the 26^th of May 2023. This preliminary research, next to building a foundation for the current survey, concluded that monitoring injuries to female rugby players and including the monitoring of breast injuries is of high priority. The high priority stems from possible complications that exercise-induced breast pain or impact-related breast injuries can cause, such as: fat necrosis (damaged or dead tissue), oil cyst, hematoma (bruise), treating complications (e.g. difficulties identifying the nature of lumps in the breast tissue). Therefore, identifying the occurrence, severity, and mechanism of breast injuries will be vital for future injury prevention, surveillance, and the identification of accompanying complications.  

It is important for us to understand the knowledge, education, and beliefs of all involved stakeholders about breast pain and injury and this information will shape our future work. We believe that a cross-sectional approach through all levels of play, amateur, semi-professional and professional is appropriate to capture the wide array of player experience in women’s rugby. This will hopefully enable us to identify the influence of playing level on the knowledge, education, and beliefs on breast pain and the experience with exercise-induced breast pain and impact-related breast injuries. This will guide us on the potential different approaches when it comes to future education strategies and/or injury surveillance and prevention recommendations.

One final request: If you know a current female Rugby Union 15s or seven’s players aged 18 or over in Ireland or worldwide – get them involved, it only takes 10 minutes! Here is the link:

https://unioflimerick.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3DhrDxbI5HAgPfU