The New Zealand Rugby Injury and Performance Project: V. Epidemiology of a season of rugby injury.

Abstract

Objective-To describe the incidence, nature, and circumstances of injury experienced by a cohort of rugby union players during a full competitive club season. Methods-A prospective cohort study followed up 356 male and female rugby players throughout the 1993 competitive club season. Players were interviewed by telephone each week to obtain information on the amount of rugby played and the injury experienced. Results-Detailed information was collected for 4403 player-games and 8653 player-practices. A total of 671 injury events were reported, of which 569 were rugby related. The injury rate for games was higher than that for practices (rate ratio 8.3). At 10.9 injuries per 100 playergames, males had a higher rate of injury than females at 6.1 injuries per 100 playergames (p<0.001). Injury rates varied by position, with male locks (13.0 injuries per 100 player-games) and female inside backs (12.3 injuries per 100 player-games) having the highest rate in their respective sexes. The lower limb was the body region most often injured in games (42.5%) and practices (58.4%). Sprains/strains were the most common type of injury in games (46.7%) and practices (76.1%). In games the tackle was the phase of play in which the most injuries occurred (40%), followed by rucks (17%) and mauls (12%). Thirteen per cent of game injury events were the result of foul play. Conclusions-Rugby injury was common among the study subjects and varied according to grade and gender. Identifying the causes of injuries in the tackle, lower limb injuries, and dealing with the issue of foul play are priority areas for the prevention of rugby injury. (Br J Sports Med 1998;32:319-325)

Epidemiological Review of Injuries in Rugby Union

“…Injuries also occur as the result of foul play, which is rarely penalized by the referee, with proportions ranging around 13% [14]. Of all injuries, 5% are as the result of foul play [6,8].…”

“…Most injuries occurring during a match affect the lower limbs (30% to 55% of injuries), followed by head and upper spinal injuries (14% to 30%), the upper limbs (15% to 20%) and finally the torso (10% to 14%) [7,[12][13][14][15]. It should be specified that in professional players, the head (including concussions) is the part of the body that is most often affected (25%), followed by the knee (14%-20%), thighs (13%-19%) and ankle (11%), then the shoulder (6.5%), hand (5.6%), leg (5.6%) and foot (3.5%) [8,[16][17][18][19].…”

Electrocardiograms of Children and Adolescents Practicing Non-competitive Sports: Normal Limits and Abnormal Findings in a Large European Cohort Evaluated by Telecardiology

“…Coinciding with the decrease in scrum-related injuries, an increase in the incidence rate of catastrophic injuries resulting from open play was reported [57]. [30] and Garraway et al [5] reported that the tackle phase of play accounted for the majority of injuries, i.e. 40 and 48% respectively, while Roberts et al [31] reported 80% of all injuries occurred due to contact events.…”

“…One possible explanation for the low rate of moderate and severe injuries is that injuries occurring late in the season may not be followed up as rigorously by the player and/or team medical or coaching staff in an amateur setting [42]. While followup physiotherapy assessments were arranged in one study, this was just for accuracy of injury recognition and diagnosis, with no long-term follow-up regarding injury severity recorded [30]. One barrier to injury surveillance within an amateur set-up is the availability of qualified medical professionals to assess, diagnose and rehabilitate injury, and this is evident in the discrepancies in follow-up periods following injury and lack of injury severity data [42,43].…”

“…2). Only one study reported the incidence rate of training injuries, therefore training injuries were not included in the metaanalysis [30]. Level of play was reported in four of the studies, with incidence rates separated according to specific levels [7,30,31,33].…”