Prevalence, patterns and factors associated with sports injuries among players in the 2012 – 2013 Federation of Uganda Football Association Super League

Abstract

Association football is the most popular sport played globally. Soccer involves several skills that require complex movements that expose athletes to injuries. Several studies have been done on soccer injuries and reported them as the commonest injuries in the modern societies. Treating these injuries is difficult because their mechanisms are not understood. An increased incidence (10-35%) has been reported as compared to other sporting activities. Risk factors identified in association football have been extensively studied in high resource countries however; little is known on the prevalence, patterns of injury and associated factors in Uganda a low resource setting. Objective To determine the prevalence, patterns and factors associated with sports injury among players in the 2012 – 2013 FUFA super league season. Method Cross sectional study design where a sample size of 250 registered FUFA super league players (N=396 players) from 13 clubs based in the central region (radius of 200km from Kampala) of Uganda was studied within three months using simple random sampling technique. Data was collected by trained team medical personnel. A semi-structured assisted questionnaire was used to obtain information on the dependent variable; injury status and independent variable; socio-demographic characteristics, clinical factor, competition type, environmental conditions, injury location, injury body part, injury type and BMI. Descriptive study data were summarised in means (SD) for continuous data while median (IQR) and proportions for categorical variables. Any statistically significant variable at p< 0.2 were considered for multivariate analysis. Dropped variables were assessed for confounding at 10% cut-off. Statistically significance Results A total of 250 players were enrolled with a mean age 23.4years + 4.1years and mean weight 71.5kgs + 6.2kgs. The prevalence of sports injuries reported, 64% (160 players). The significant categorical variable were previous injury and recurrence of injury within the same season OR 3.33, (95% CI: 1.72 – 6.47), OR 6.18 (95% CI: 2.36 – 16.17) and OR 3.57 (95% CI: 1.32 – 9.70) respectively. Conclusions The prevalence of sports injuries among the 2012 – 2013 super league players was high at 64%. A super division player reporting a single history of sports injury within the season had thrice an increased injury risk than a player with no history of previous injury. Players with a history of two or more injuries within the 2012 -2013 season had a 6 time risk increase of sports injury than those who did not have an injury during the season. Players with recurrence of injury within the season are thrice more at an injury risk than those with no injury occurrence within the 2012 – 2013 season.