Relationship Between Identification of Functional Ankle Instability (IdFAI) Questionnaire Scores and Vertical Drop-Landing Kinetics in Netball Players: An Exploratory Study.

Background: The Identification of Functional Ankle Instability (IdFAI) questionnaire is widely used to screen for functional ankle instability (FAI), but its link to objective landing kinetics in multidirectional sports like netball is not well-understood. This study aimed to (i) compare landing kinetics between idFAI stratified netball players, and (ii) examine associations between IdFAI scores with dynamic postural stability (DPS) indices and peak vertical ground reaction forces (PvGRF) during vertical drop landings. Methods: A cross-sectional exploratory study using a repeated-measures landing protocol was conducted on female university netball players (n = 24), stratified into FAI (n = 12) and non-FAI (n = 12) groups using the IdFAI (≥11 indicating possible FAI). Participants completed 18 unilateral drop jump landings in forward (FW), diagonal (DI), and lateral (LA) directions. Ground reaction forces (GRFs) were recorded to obtain DPS and PvGRF metrics (1000 Hz). Mann-Whitney U tests compared FAI groups, and Spearman correlations assessed associations (p < 0.05). Results: Players with FAI showed greater anteroposterior instability during LA landings (U = 33.5, p = 0.020, ES = 0.65). IdFAI scores correlated moderately with lateral anteroposterior deficits (rs = 0.473, p = 0.020, CI = 0.062-0.746). Conclusions: These findings suggest that players with greater FAI display increased anteroposterior instability during LA landings, with higher IdFAI scores moderately associated with these deficits. Despite the small exploratory, hypothesis-generating sample, the results emphasize the practical relevance of direction-targeted landing-stability training to improve DPS in vertical landings. This may provide insight into ankle-injury risk among FAI netball players, given that LA landings represent a documented ankle sprain mechanism.