Sex-Related Injury Patterns among Selected High School Sports

Abstract

This cohort observational study was undertaken to test the hypothesis that the incidence of injuries for girls participating in high school sports is greater than that for boys. From 1995 through 1997, players were included in our study if they were listed on the school's varsity team roster for boys' or girls' basketball, boys' or girls' soccer, boys' baseball, or girls' softball. Injuries and opportunities for injury were recorded daily. Certified athletic trainers reported injury and exposure data. Based on 39,032 player-seasons and 8988 reported injuries, the injury rates per 100 players for softball (16.7) and for girls' soccer (26.7) were higher than for baseball (13.2) and boys' soccer (23.4). The knee injury rates per 100 players for girls' basketball (4.5) and girls' soccer (5.2) were higher than for their male counterparts. Major injuries occurred more often in girls' basketball (12.4%) and soccer (12.1%) than in boys' basketball (9.9%) and soccer (10.4%). Baseball players (12.5%) had more major injuries than softball players (7.8%). There was a higher number of surgeries, particularly knee and anterior cruciate ligament surgeries, for female basketball and soccer players than for boys or girls in other sports.

Basketball Injuries

“…A comparison of injury rates from prospective and retrospective research is shown in table 1 and covers high school [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21], physical education class [22], clubs/sports organizations [23][24][25][26][27], and hospital emergency departments [28,29]. In addition, studies reporting incidence data specifically for knee [18,19,30], ankle [31,32], head [33], and orofacial [34][35][36] injuries are listed. Unfortunately, the injury literature on youth basketball suffers from a broad range of methodological shortcomings, including widely varying definitions of a reportable injury, limited measures of exposure, differing metrics of risk, and poor delineation of the population at risk.…”

“…Moreover, with the variety of ages in disparate settings (school teams, clubs, physical education classes) across multiple countries, there is little appropriately comparable data. Even the results of the most commonly studied population (American public high school players) vary considerably, from 5.6-36.8 per 100 participants for boys, and 7.8-49 per 100 participants for girls [14][15][16][17]19], although two studies which report injuries per 1,000 hours of participation are similar (3.2-4.0) [17,18]. A coordinated research program with standard protocols is necessary if a clear picture of the level of risk, and associated causal factors, is to emerge.…”

“…The lower extremities generally account for the majority of injuries in youth basketball (35.9-92%), with the ankle/foot representing the single most frequently injured region (16.6-44%) [12, 17-19, [12] et al [17] et al [18] Barber-Foss [19] Nielsen et al [27] et al [29] (n ϭ 132) (n ϭ 890) [25] (n ϭ 223) (n ϭ 111) boys girls boys girls (n ϭ 21) (n ϭ 543) (n ϭ 436) (n ϭ 1,933) (n ϭ 1,748) [28]; 21% [29]; 43% [25]). Taylor and Attia [12] found that wrist/hand injuries were more likely in basketball than in any other sport studied (OR ϭ 1.7; 95% CI ϭ 1.1-2.5).…”

“…Two studies of high school players in the USA produced a relative risk of 6.8:1 for female players in a 100-school sample [17], and an Incidence Density Ratio (IDR; game injury rate over practice injury rate) of 8.0 and 9.4, for boys and girls, respectively (p Ͻ 0.0001) [18]. Two additional high school studies provide further support by reporting the percentages of injuries in games and practices [19,41]. Although no exposure data are provided, even a conservative estimate of 3 practices per game played indicate that the relative risk is approximately 2.2:1 for boys and between 2.1-2.8 for girls.…”

Effectiveness of a stress management pilot program aimed at reducing the incidence of sports injuries in young football (soccer) players

“…However, the problem that could receive this group-based intervention. Gender differences in sport injury incidence might also affect a program's effectiveness (Powell, & Barber-Foss, 2000;Prodromos et al, 2007), although the program itself is not gender specific and could be delivered to either males or females. Finally, age differences could also affect the outcome, as a result of both age and injury history, and the willingness of older people to receive an hour long intervention session.…”