Abstract guidelines for the World Congress on Sports Injury Prevention

·         The final deadline for abstract submission is Monday January 7, 2008 (23.00 GMT)

·         The abstract must be written in English. If English is not your first language, please have it reviewed by a language editor

·         Authors will be informed of the decision of the Scientific Committee by March 1, 2008

·         Make the title brief, but informative, clearly indicating the nature of the investigation/presentation. Do not capitalize the title!

·         Objective data MUST be included so that the reviewers can make a fair and meaningful appraisal

·         Abbreviations are allowed, but must be clearly defined.

·         The abstract can not be longer than 300 words and must be structured, using the following headings and including the following information (hard return between each section):

-          Background: Provide the background for the study in one or two sentences -          Objective: State the main question or objective of the study and the major hypothesis tested, if any. -          Design: Describe the design of the study, indicating, as appropriate, use of randomisation, blinding, criterion standards for diagnostic tests, temporal direction (retrospective or prospective), and so on. -          Setting: Indicate the study setting, including the clinical setting or competitive level in sports if relevant (e.g. youth sports, high school league, elite division, World Cup team). -          Patients (or Participants): State selection procedures, entry criteria, and numbers of participants entering and finishing the study. -          Interventions (or Assessment of Risk Factors): Describe essential features of any interventions, including their method and duration of administration. For observational studies, clearly outline the independent variables. -          Main Outcome Measurements: The primary study outcome measures (dependent variables) should be indicated as planned before data collection began. If the hypothesis being reported was formulated during or after data collection, this fact should be clearly stated. -          Results: Report the main findings of the study. -          Conclusions: State only those conclusions of the study that are directly supported by data, along with their clinical application (avoiding overgeneralisation) or whether additional study is required before the information should be used in usual clinical settings.

·         Please note: Equal emphasis must be given to positive and negative findings of equal scientific merit.