Footballers and wrestlers top high-school injury league

Sep 14, 2009 11:30 AM

Want to keep your high-school athlete in one piece? Tell them to keep off the football or wrestling teams.

That’s the message from a study of injuries in high-school students, which found that athletes taking part in these contact sports had a higher rate of severe injuries than those taking part in other sports.

The report's authors defined a severe injury as one that causes the athlete to miss more than 21 days of sports activity. Severe injuries were uncommon. Only 4 serious injuries occurred for every 10,000 times an athlete took part in training or competition.

The most common severe injuries were bone fractures, suffered by 36 percent of severely-injured athletes, and ligament sprains. Hands and fingers were the most frequently fractured body parts, followed by ankles and wrists. But knees were the part of the body most frequently injured, reflecting the high number of injuries to knee ligaments.

The researchers studied football, soccer, volleyball, basketball, wrestling, baseball, and softball. In all sports, people were more likely to be injured during the rough and tumble of a competitive game than they were during training. Male students were more likely to get injured overall, but that was probably because more boys took part in the high-injury sports of football or wrestling. When researchers compared sports that girls also took part in, such as basketball and baseball, they found that girls were more likely to be injured than their male peers.

What you need to know. High-school sports can be great for a youngster’s confidence and overall fitness. But the price can be an injury such as a fracture or sprain. Contact sports such as football and wrestling have the highest injury rate, although the overall rate of severe injury is not high.

—Anna Sayburn, patient editor, BMJ Group

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