Subsequent Injury Patterns in Girls' High School Sports (Original Research) (Report‪)‬

In 1991, an estimated 2 million school sports injuries, 500 000 doctor visits, and 30 000 hospitalizations were related to high school sports in the United States. (1) Participation in interscholastic sports in the United States has risen annually from 5.3 million in 1991 to more than 7 million high school athletes during the 2005-2006 school year. (2) Recent estimates suggest that 1.4 million injuries occurred in 9 sports during the 2005-2006 school year, a rate of 2.4 injuries per 1000 athlete-exposures. (3) Given the more than 40 sports associated with the National Federation of State High School Associations, the actual number of injured athletes is likely larger. (2) Although the incidence of injury among boys' high school sports has been well documented, (4) information regarding the incidence, severity, and types of injury among girls' high school sports is limited. This is of concern because of the large increase in the number of participants and diversity of sports offered for girls at the high school level during the past 30 years. More than 2.95 million girls participated in high school sports nationally during the 2005-2006 school year. (2) This number represents a 79.5% increase in participation since 1975-1976, compared with a 2.0% increase for boys during the same time. Thus, with the growing popularity of girls' sports, additional consideration must be given to the occurrence of injuries in light of recent authors' reports of higher injury rates among girl athletes than boy athletes in similar sports. (5-9) Although an important aspect of injury prevention is to minimize the risk of an athlete's initial (first) injury, an equal goal is to minimize the occurrence of subsequent injuries (reinjury to the same body location or additional injuries to new body locations). (5,6,8,10-13) However, few investigators have addressed the distinction between initial and subsequent injury specifically for girls' high school athletes. Of these, the reports have varied with sport type. (6,8,10,11) Similarly, few authors have specifically assessed the effect of subsequent injury types, that is, the difference between reinjury to the same body location and injuries to a new body location. (6,8) Further, few have assessed the effect of reinjury by specific body location, injury type, and time lost from injury (severity), which may provide important information for determining those injuries needing greater attention. Finally, a limited number of researchers have examined the effect of injury proneness (ie, athletes who incur multiple injuries), (14,15) especially in high school sports. (7,8)