The Epidemiology of Sports Related Dislocations among Collegiate and High School Athletes

Abstract

Athletes are at risk of sustaining a dislocation, ranging from relatively minor with minimal time lost from play to more severe with long recovery times and costly treatments. Previous studies have examined dislocations; however, most focused on specific sports or joints. PURPOSE: To describe dislocations sustained by collegiate and high school athletes. METHODS: Athletic trainers (ATs) participating in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Injury Surveillance Program reported athlete-exposure (AE) and injury data for 25 sports during the 2009/10-2016/17 academic years. ATs participating in the National Athletic Treatment Injury and Outcomes Network (NATION) reported AE and injury data for 27 sports during 2011/12-2013/14. Dislocations occurred during a school-sanctioned practice or competition and required medical attention. Along with dislocation characteristics, injury rates per 10,000 AEs were reported with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). RESULTS: From 2009/10-2016/17, ATs reported 542 dislocations among NCAA athletes for an injury rate of 0.81/10,000 AEs (95% CI:0.74-0.87). Men’s football (1.74; 95% CI:1.53-1.94), men’s wrestling (1.53; 95% CI:0.91-2.16), and women’s gymnastics (1.31; 95% CI:0.54-2.09) had the highest rate of dislocations. From 2011/12-2013/14, ATs reported 149 dislocations among high school athletes for an injury rate of 0.29/10,000 AEs (95% CI:0.24-0.34). Boys’ football (0.79; 95% CI:0.62-0.95), girls’ basketball (0.52; 95% CI:0.26-0.78), and boys’ wrestling (0.50; 95% CI:0.22-0.79) had the highest rate of dislocations. For NCAA and high school athletes, the most commonly dislocated body parts were the hand/finger (40.2% and 25.8%) and shoulder/clavicle (36.7% and 40.3%). A greater proportion of dislocations resulted from player contact (55.8%) and were non-time loss (40.9%) in NCAA athletes than high school athletes (39.6% and 25.9%). A similar proportion of NCAA and high school dislocations were recurrent (20.6% and 18.8%) and required surgery (21.4% and 15.8%). CONCLUSION: Some characteristics of dislocations vary across collegiate and high school athletes including mechanism of injury and time loss. More research is needed to determine how to effectively reduce the incidence of dislocations among all collegiate and high school athletes.