Luca Macrelli ^1* Luca Mallia ² Gabriele Thiebat ³ Jacopo Emanuele Rocchi ^2,4 Lee Herrington ^5,6 Sebastiano Nutarelli ^7,8

• ¹ Master in Musculoskeletal Physical Therapy, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
• ² Department of Movement, Human and Health Sciences, Foro Italico University of Rome, Rome, Lazio, Italy
• ³ Sport Traumatology and Minimally Invasive Surgery Center, IRCCS Istituto Ortopedico Galeazzi, Milan, Italy
• ⁴ FIFA Medical Centre of Excellence, Villa Stuart Sport Clinic, Rome, Italy
• ⁵ Manchester Institute for Health and Performance, English Institute of Sport, Manchester, England, United Kingdom
• ⁶ Centre for Health, Sport and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Salford, Salford, North West England, United Kingdom
• ⁷ Department of Surgery, EOC, Service of Orthopaedics and Traumatology, Lugano, Switzerland
• ⁸ School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Sports Science, University College Dublin, Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland

Introduction: Total and sub-total lesions of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) are one of the most frequent and performance limiting injuries to the knee joint within active population. Early surgical management often regarded as the primary management strategy, has recently been shown to have similar outcomes when compared with an initial rehabilitative approach followed by surgical ACL reconstruction (ACL -R) if higher levels of functionality are needed.The primary objective of the study was to investigate the physiotherapists and orthopaedic surgeons' "coper/non -coper" screening application in the clinical management of the patient following anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury.Secondly, the authors aimed to investigate the cooperation between physiotherapists and orthopaedic surgeons when dealing with ACL injured patients.Methods: Distribution of an online survey consisting in 12 questions on the clinical practice of the surveyed physiotherapists (n=803) and orthopaedic surgeons(n=201), and the relation between these healthcare professionals. The answers were stratified depending on clinical experience in dealing with ACL injuries.Results: Both physiotherapists and orthopaedic surgeons showed a low degree of confidence and application of the "coper/non -coper" screening when managing ACL lesions. The ACL -experts sub-population reported a good level of inter -professional interaction, nevertheless an updated level of knowledge regarding the recent evidence on the non -surgical management of ACL lesions is still lacking.The study findings indicate the need to improve the collaboration between Italian physiotherapists and orthopaedic surgeons as well as their knowledge of the non -surgical approaches to ACL lesions.