Risk Factors Involved in Cheerleading Injuries

Injury prevention is an important aspect of health in which professionals in the field must focus. With a continual increase of risk in activities performed nationwide, health professionals must seek to educate the population on risk factors involved in these activities. For my research, I examined the prevalence of injuries related to cheerleading. I specifically studied cheerleading injuries among female cheerleaders ages fourteen to seventeen. I conducted analyses to study what risk factors contribute to an increased exposure to injury among cheerleaders. METHODS: I used the NEISS database to obtain nationally representative data of patients who reported a cheerleading injury. The data contains 546 reports of injuries from females ages fourteen to seventeen. The injuries can be from cheerleading activity, equipment, or apparel. Descriptive analyses involving frequencies and cross tabulations were used to examine what factors affected the risk of injury most commonly. Data analyses were done using SPSS Statistics software. RESULTS: Findings indicated that the likelihood of an injury within this pool was greatest among fourteen-year-old Caucasians. The most common location of injury was at a sports or recreation center. The most common diagnosis among every age was a strain or sprain, with over ninety-seven percent of cases being treated and released without hospitalization. The most commonly injured body part in every age was a head. CONCLUSIONS: With the high prevalence of cheerleading injuries, health professionals should promote cheerleading safety and educators should give cheerleaders and coaches proper education on injury prevention