Background Sports injuries are highly disadvantageous for Physical Education (PE) students, because they can lead to physical discomfort, and absence from sports classes resulting in higher study career costs.Objective To investigate the magnitude of the injury problem in PE students and to explore risk factors for sustaining an injury.Design A prospective cohort study with six months follow up.Participants and setting 280 Dutch freshmen PE students.Assessment of risk factors Prior to the start of the school year, all students underwent a medical examination to assess height, weight, percentage of body fat, blood pressure, visual acuity, muscle-skeletal functioning, and cardio-respiratory endurance. During the six months follow up, an online questionnaire was conducted on a weekly basis to monitor injuries and illnesses (OSTRC Overuse Injury Questionnaire). Furthermore, every two weeks an online questionnaire (POMS and RESTQ-Sports) was administered to measure mood and perceived stress and recovery of the students.Main outcome measures Frequencies and characteristics of injuries and illnesses.Results According to the OSTRC Overuse Injury Questionnaire, 22.5% of the students had physical problems regarding injuries during the first month of the school year, and 11.2% of the students were ill. Data collection will end in February 2014. We will perform a logistic regression analysis to test whether the injured students differ significantly from non injured students based on characteristics such as age, sex, body composition, and muscle-skeletal functioning.Conclusions Preliminary results showed that the risk of sustaining an injury and becoming ill is high for freshmen PE students. Screening at the start of the school year may play an important role in identifying the students at risk.
Runners often sustain lower extremity injuries (19-79%) (van Gent et al, 2007). In a theoretical model it has been described that a disturbance in perceived stress and recovery can increase the risk of sustaining an injury (Williams & Andersen, 1998). Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate changes in perceived stress and recovery preceding an injury of competitive runners.Methods: Twenty-four competitive runners were monitored over one full training season (46 weeks). Every week, the runners filled an on-line RESTQ-sport (Nederhof et al, 2008). Furthermore, runners and their coaches kept a log with injuries and physical complaints. A non-traumatic injury was defined as any pain, soreness or injury that was not caused by trauma and resulted from training and led to a decrease in training duration or training intensity for at least one week (Jacobsson et al, 2013). Because baseline levels of perception of stress and recovery vary largely between runners, the 19 scales of the RESTQ-Sport were normalized to Z-scores based on the runner’s individual average and standard deviation of the whole season (excl. injured periods). The normalized scores of 1, 2 and 3 weeks before the first sustained injury were compared to 0, which is the average normalized score, by repeated measures ANOVA’s.Results: Twenty-two runners sustained a non-traumatic lower extremity injury. Eight of these runners filled out the RESTQ-Sport all 3 weeks preceding the injury and their data was used for further analysis. The injuries sustained were non-traumatic injuries of the knee, Achilles tendon, ankle, foot and shin. It was shown that 1 week preceding the injury, runners scored lower than the average normalized score on “Success” (Z-score: -0.68±0.62) and 2 weeks preceding the injury runners scored higher than their average on “Fitness/Injuries” (Z-score: 1.04±1.12).Discussion: A decrease in perceived success may be a marker to predict a non-traumatic lower extremity injury. Also an increase in the perception of muscle ache, soreness, pain and vulnerability to injury (“Fitness/Injury”) preceded injuries. Thereby, monitoring changes in individual stress and recovery may help to prevent non-traumatic injuries.
