Abstract
ObjectivesThe aim was to describe the annual incidence and types of musculoskeletal injuries, and to examine factors associated with injury risk. DesignA 52-week prospective study in Swedish youth athletics aged 12–15 years. MethodsData on exposure to training and injury were collected from parents/caregivers and youth athletes using a web-survey system. ResultsA total of 101 (86%) youth athletes participated. Fifty-four (53%) of the athletes reported one new injury. Girls were at higher risk of sustaining an injury than boys (p = 0.048). Ninety-one percent of the new injuries were non-traumatic and 85% occurred in the lower extremities. Injuries to the front thigh represented 20% of the injuries. Cox proportional hazard regression analyses showed a six-fold increased risk for a first injury for athletes reporting use of spikes and training <6 h every two weeks (hazard ratio, 6.1; 95% confidence interval, 1.2–31.3) compared to athletes training <6 h using no spikes. Athletes training 6 h or more reporting use or no use of spikes had an eight-fold increase injury risk (p < 0.01). ConclusionsAlmost half of the youth athletes experienced a new injury and girls had a higher risk compared to boys. Nine out of ten injuries were related to overuse. An interesting observation was the high incidence of injuries to the quadriceps muscle complex. The study identified a correlation with training hours and an interaction with track spikes and risk of injury that needs further attention.
Highlights
The relatively high annual incidence in this study is in accordance with the relatively few longitudinal studies published in youth athletics.[4,8,10,11]
In line with previous research in youth athletics, our findings show that most injuries (90%) were related to overuse and >8 out of 10 of the injuries were in a lower extremity.4
The present study displayed no association between injury and training surface, but we found that training
Summary
The aim was to describe the annual incidence and types of musculoskeletal injuries, and to examine factors associated with injury risk. Fifty-four (53%) of the athletes reported one new injury. Girls were at higher risk of sustaining an injury than boys (p = 0.048). Cox proportional hazard regression analyses showed a six-fold increased risk for a first injury for athletes reporting use of spikes and training
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