ABSTRACT
Preventing injuries is a good idea, and nobody will debate this point. Yet, despite overwhelming evidence for the efficacy of many injury prevention strategies, it’s still a struggle to convince athletes and coaches to use them. Issues surrounding implementation have been recognized as the single biggest limiting factor in injury prevention efforts around the world, regardless of the nature or content of the intervention. This chapter focuses on one of the main culprits in this: the cognitive process of intention formation and why intentions don’t always translate to injury prevention action. It includes topics like barriers and facilitators to intervention use within broader sport contexts, and the role of health behavior change theory in improving the way we design and deliver prevention strategies. Practical examples and success stories are used to illustrate key points and we make some suggestions for future research that borrow from the fields of implementation science and knowledge translation.
