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Published on: May 26, 2020
Injury as a barrier to sport and physical activity participation in physically inactive women
Kiera Staley1, Andrea M Bruder2, Alex Donaldson3
1Centre for Sport and Social Impact, La Trobe University, Australia; La Trobe Business School, La Trobe University, Australia.
Objectives:
To describe the demographic characteristics of physically inactive women self-reporting injury as a barrier to organised sport/physical activity and explore associations between these variables.
Design:
Cross-sectional survey.
Methods:
An online survey was administered to women aged ≥18 years following participation in social sport programmes in Victoria, Australia. Data included: demographic, physical activity participation, and injury-related variables. Participants were classified as injury-affected if they reported injury, before or during the programme, as a participation barrier. Responses from physically inactive participants (<150 min physical activity/week) with complete injury-classification data formed the analytic sample. Descriptive statistics summarised participant characteristics, and logistic regressions estimated associations between demographic variables and injury status (ORs, 95% CIs).
Results:
Of 1618 survey respondents, 1339 (82.7%) met inclusion criteria, of whom 20.8% (n = 279) were injury-affected. A subset (n = 77) of the injury-affected women completed additional injury-specific questions revealing the common injury sites: knee (39.0%), lower back (29.9%), and ankle (24.7%). Univariate analyses revealed associations between geographical location, parental status, education, income, regular physical activity confidence, and injury-affected status. However, only lower income and low confidence remained independently associated in the multivariate model (OR = 1.84-3.28, p < 0.05), with higher odds of being injury-affected.
Conclusions:
One in five physically inactive women who engaged in social sport reported injury as a barrier to participation. Socioeconomic disadvantage and lower physical activity confidence were key associations with injury-affected status. Tailored injury-prevention and management strategies that address structural inequities and build participant confidence to support safe, sustained sport/physical activity engagement are needed for physically inactive women.
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