Schmerzmittelgebrauch im deutschen Fußball

01/12/2021 to 30/11/2023

Pain and injuries are described in research as an (almost) unavoidable accompanying phenomenon of competitive sport. However, even severe pain does not necessarily lead to a break. In the GOAL study financed by the Federal Institute for Sports Science, half of the junior athletes explicitly stated that even severe joint pain at rest was not a reason for cancelling a competition. In the same study, there was also a tendency to rest too late despite pain and to return to training and competition too early after injuries. As many as a quarter of the respondents even stated that they hid pain in order to be allowed to take part in the competition. In general, a high willingness to participate in competitions despite health problems can be observed among both young athletes and adult athletes. The risky handling of injuries and pain does not seem to be a specifically German phenomenon. International qualitative analyses with young athletes and adult top athletes indicate that the concealment of pain is almost the rule in professional and semi-professional sport. Concealment of pain, in turn, often leads to a deterioration of health or even a chronification of physical complaints. The biggest problem for medical care in the treatment of pain is that it cannot be objectively determined and is not necessarily visible, which encourages trivialisation by athletes, coaches, officials and even medical staff. Trivialising pain in turn risks early intervention after injury, circumventing preventive and rehabilitative guidelines and, last but not least, the inappropriate use of painkillers. Against this background, it is not surprising that already in adolescence almost half of all young athletes interviewed in the GOAL study consider the use of painkillers to be very compatible with competition and training. In accordance with the research deficits, the research project pursues the overarching goal of identifying the dispensing patterns of painkillers in professional football, as well as the patterns of painkiller consumption in semi-professional football, and to determine the constellations of conditions that influence painkiller consumption.