Effects Of A School-based Injury Prevention Program On Acute Physical Activity Injury Incidence And Severity.

Abstract

The health benefits of regular physical activity in children are widely known. Participation in physical activity, however, also leads to unwanted side effects such as acute physical activity related injuries. Although most injuries in children are not life threatening, they may coincide with direct pain, short-term disability, school absence and long-term consequences, all leading to high direct and indirect costs. PURPOSE: To investigate the effectiveness of a school-based injury prevention program (iPlay) on acute physical activity injury incidence and severity in Dutch children aged 10-12 years. METHOD: The iPlay-study is a cluster randomised controlled trial including 2,210 children from 40 primary schools. The 20 intervention schools received the iPlay-program during one school year whereas the control schools followed the regular curriculum. The iPlay-program targeted acute physical activity injuries and consisted of newsletters, posters, a website, and simple exercises to be carried out during physical education (PE) classes. Primary outcome measures were acute physical activity injury incidence and severity continuously monitored by the PE teacher. Group comparisons were made using the Cox proportional hazard regression analyses. RESULTS: Results showed that the overall physical activity injury incidence per 1,000 hours of physical activity participation was significantly reduced in the intervention group (Hazard Ratio (HR) = 0.68, 95%CI:0.49-0.95). Specifically, during organized sports activities injury incidence was strongly reduced (HR = 0.55, 95%CI:0.31-0.98). Furthermore, in girls injury incidence during leisure time physical activities was considerably reduced (HR = 0.38, 95%CI:0.18-0.82). In boys in the intervention group, the severity of the overall physical activity injuries was significantly lower (OR = 0.12, 95%CI:0.02-0.72). CONCLUSION: This study revealed that a school-based intervention-program was effective in reducing acute physical activity injury incidence in children aged 10-12 years. The program also decreased the severity of the physical activity injuries in boys.