Characterising groin pain in rink hockey: Function and five-second squeeze in Spanish players

High Prevalence of Seasonal and Current Groin Problems in Rink Hockey Players

“…Regarding time-loss groin pain, our results indicate that these problems are common in senior rink hockey (25%), with similar prevalence compared to football (32%), basketball (25%), futsal (25%), or water polo (18%), disciplines with high rates of this condition [22]. Eleven percent of female senior participants reported time-loss groin pain throughout the season, which is similar to previous observations in rink hockey (9%) [14], and football (9%) [10], but substantially less than ice hockey players (26%) [12]. It is worth noting that we included a larger sample of female athletes compared to the cited studies, which helps gaining confidence in the observed results, but our 162 participants accounted to only 36% of the final sample.…”

“…A sample size calculation was performed a priori using the Scalex calculator [21]. A population of 246 subjects was deemed necessary for an expected time-loss groin pain prevalence of 20 % [14], and a 5 % margin of error [21]. However, we aimed to include as many players as possible from all ages or genders.…”

“…Male athletes seem to be at higher risk of sustaining these injuries, with 2 to 4 higher odds of suffering an episode of groin pain, although the clear explanation is not fully understood [16]. To clearly identify gender differences, there is a need for inclusion of more female populations, since girls are underrepresented in studies on this topic [13,14].…”

“…It has recently been proposed that epidemiological data should be gathered considering injuries that may not only lead to time-loss, such case applies to groin problems [9]. The collection of time-loss prevalence of groin pain captured only 10-30 % of all groin problems in football/soccer [10,11], 41 % to 55 % in ice hockey [12,13], and 53 % in rink hockey [14], indicating that more than half of the cases are not detected. Additionally, time-loss adductor longus tears represented 24 % of all injuries in high-level rink hockey players [7].…”

“…It has recently been proposed that epidemiological data should be gathered considering injuries that may not only lead to time-loss, such case applies to groin problems [9]. The collection of time-loss prevalence of groin pain captured only 10-30% of all groin problems in football [10,11], forty-one to 55% in ice hockey [12,13], and 53% in rink hockey [14],…”