Prevalence of sport injuries during the 53th Regional Games in Franca (SP), Brazil

The purpose of this study was to perform a survey about the prevalence, type and location of the injuries occurred in athletes of different modalities during the 53th Regional Games held in 2009. A total of 182 injured athletes being treated at the physical therapy clinic were included. Physical Therapy evaluation was performed to determine the anatomic location and type of injury, as well the sport modality. The results showed that mean age, height, weight and BMI were 23 years (±5.9), 1.73 m (±0.11), 71 kg (±14.22) and 24 kg/m² (±4) respectively. Proportionality to the number of athletes, handball athletes presented with higher number of injuries (4.25%), followed by indoor soccer players (3.7%), basketball (2.48%), volleyball (1.72%) and soccer (1.63%). The most common type of injury were sprains with 29.7% of cases (n=54) and mostly from soccer players; followed by contracture - 26.9% (n=49), mostly from basketball players; and contusion -25.8% (n=47), mostly from handball and indoor soccer players. The type of injury showed a significant association with the sports modality (p=0.0016). The lower limbs accounted for 71.4% of all injuries including knee (23.1%), ankle (18.1%), thigh (17.0%), leg (10.4%) and spine (9.9%). Preventive actions to avoid athletes' injury should be implemented in order to reduce the number of injuries in sports competitions such as in the Regional Games