Middle School Injuries: A 20-Year (1988-2008) Multisport Evaluation

Context : Data on the incidence of injury in middle school sports are limited. Objective : To describe overall, practice, and game injury rate patterns in 29 middle school sports. Design : Descriptive epidemiology study. Setting : Injury data collected over a 20-year period (1988-2008) at a single school. Patients or Other Participants : Boy (n = 8078) and girl (n = 5960) athletes participating in 14 and 15 middle school sports, respectively. Main Outcome Measure(s) : Injury status and athlete-exposures (AEs) were collected by certified athletic trainers. Incidence rates per 1000 AEs (injuries/AEs) were calculated for overall incidence, practices and games, injury location, injury type, and injury severity (time lost from participation). Rate ratios (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to compare injury rates for sex-matched sports. Results : Football had the highest injury rate for all injuries ( 16.03/1000 AEs) and for time-loss injuries (8.486/1000 AEs). In matched middle school sports, girls exhibited a higher injury rate for all injuries (7.686/1000 AEs, RR = 1.15, 95% CI = 1.1, 1.2) and time-loss injuries (2.944/1000 AEs, RR = 1.09, 95% CI = 1.0, 1.2) than boys (all injuries: 6.684/1000 AEs, time-loss injuries: 2.702/1000 AEs). Girls had a higher injury rate during practices (3.30/1000 AEs) than games (1.67/1000 AEs, RR = 1.97, 95% CI = 1.7, 2.4) for all sports. Only gymnastics (RR = 0.96, 95% CI = 0.3, 0.9) had a higher game injury rate for girls. Practice and game injury rates were nearly identical for boys in all sports (RR = 0.99, 95% CI = 0.9, 1.1). Only football (RR = 0.49, 95% CI = 0.4, 0.6) and boys' wrestling (RR = 0.50, 95% CI = 0.3, 0.8) reported higher game injury rates. Tendinitis injuries accounted for 19.1% of all middle school injuries. Conclusions : The risk for sport-related injury at the middle school level was greater during practices than games and greater for girls than boys in sex-matched sports. Conditioning programs may be needed to address the high rate of tendinitis injuries.