Background - Non-contact anterior cruciate ligament injuries (NC-ACLI) are becoming more common in football due to the involvement of actions such as cutting, landing, pivoting, changing directions, and jumping that expose the knee to angular stresses, rotational motions, and anterior translation force. These risk factors are addressed in the current injury prevention programs(IPP) but have shown to be less effective in further lowering NC-ACLI risk. The missing piece in these IPPs is their inability to target neurocognitive risk factors when a relationship between cognitive competencies and the mechanism of NC-ACLI is evidenced. This gap serves as the basis for the review.

Purpose – To map the literature that has investigated the application of neurocognitive training (NCT) for the prevention of NC-ACLI in footballers.

Study Design – Scoping Review

Methods – A broad eligibility criteria was applied through population, concept, and context framework. Restrictions were applied to language (English) and age (>11 years), as the incidence rises with age. 39 databases and 4 websites were searched for literature until August 12, 2023. Four studies were included after screening the 144 studies found.  Each study underwent quality assessment. The data was extracted and synthesised using data chart.

Results – The reviewed studies provided comprehensive details on components of NCT with methods and provider of intervention, outcome of NCT application and the cognitive skills targeted, along with the theoretical explanations for their outcomes. The limited number of included studies despite broad eligibility criteria, indicates the emerging nature of research in this domain, corroborated by recent publication dates of included literature.

Conclusion – This review provides baseline information on NCT in the prevention of NC-ACLI in football and attempts to guide future research.

A literature search was conducted in approximately 24 physiotherapy databases, 10 sports sciences and rehabilitation databases and 5 neuroscience databases including SPORTDiscus, COCHRANE, PEDro, SCOPUS, PubMed, and MEDLINE. Keywords like ‘anterior cruci* ligament *’, ‘neurocogni*’ training’ or ‘cogniti* intervention’, ‘football’ or ‘soccer’, and ‘injury prevent*’  were utilised. In an attempt to retrieve most literature on the topic, each neurocognitive components listed in DSM-V criteria were used as search words. Additionally, the types of neurocognitive approaches applied to other sports were used as search terms replacing ‘neurocognitive’ like Visuomotor Reaction Time, Self-Talk, Attention changing, Stress Management, Mindfulness, and Imagery, not to miss any literature. Grey literature was searched for on Google Scholar and Nottingham University (NU Search) using the same search terms. This search was conducted to look for all the relevant evidence published or unpublished from the year of the first available evidence on each electronic database and registry until August 12, 2023. In order to uphold the reliability of the review, studies written in English were only considered. This choice was made due to the potential for software-based translations to alter the intended meaning of the text, which could ultimately have a significant impact on the outcomes of the scoping review. Furthermore, the time-consuming task of manually translating documents was avoided to ensure efficiency and timely completion of the review.

Following the search, all references were uploaded to EndNote X9 (Clarivate Analytics, PA, USA) and duplicates were removed. The articles were then screened for inclusion by their titles and abstracts and sought for retrieval. Later on, the full text of the selected articles was screened against the eligibility criteria.

A critical appraisal of the evidence was conducted to ensure the quality of this scoping review. Full-text articles were appraised using checklists available for the respective study designs and were rated as low, moderate, or good quality study. However, the studies of all levels of evidence and quality were eligible for inclusion.

Data from eligible studies were extracted using a data chart.