Epidemiology of injuries in senior male rugby union sevens: a systematic review

Abstract

Injury incidence rates in rugby sevens are higher than those reported for the 15-a-side variant, at the same level of competition. Injuries are also more severe, resulting in longer absence periods. This might result from the fact that rugby sevens is played with greater speed, leading to an increase in energy transfers during tackles, more running and turning manoeuvers, that can possibly cause more severe injuries.

Profile of the Portuguese male university rugby sevens championship

“…The most frequent type of injury in this study was joint/ligament, which was also found for elite international tournaments (Cruz-Ferreira et al 2017), unlike the reports from the only amateur tournament, in which the most prevailing injury was muscle/tendon (Lopez et al 2012) -which comes second in this study. The latter type, however, was associated with more severe injuries (although without statistical significance).…”

“…However, the average severity of injuries (26.6 ± 6.3) was smaller than the reported for every previous studies at elite level, which can be as high as 44.2 days (40.6-48.1, CI 95%) (Cruz-Ferreira et al 2017). …”

“…Total match exposure (53.67 player match-hours) was clearly smaller than every study previously published for elite level, which ranged from 866.3 to 6480.6 player match-hours (Cruz-Ferreira et al 2017). Even when compared with the only epidemiological study with amateur rugby players, with 866.3 player match-hours (Lopez et al 2012), this tournament presents a smaller exposure.…”

“…A large number of studies has been published, in these past years, concerning Rugby Union fifteens injuries (Bird et al 1998;Brooks et al 2005;Schneiders et al 2009;Haseler et al 2010;Fuller et al 2013;Fuller et al 2008;Williams et al 2013). However, regarding the sevens variant, we can find a different reality as the available literature is clearly insufficient (Cruz-Ferreira et al 2017). Nevertheless, according to a recently published review article, which summarized the available epidemiologic data from seven different prospective studies on sevens' male competitions we could see that the average injury incidence rate in elite athletes was 108.3 [100.6-116.6, Confidence Interval (CI) 95%] per 1000 player match-hours, mean severity was 44.2 days(40.6-48.1, CI 95%).…”

“…With its inclusion in the 2016 Olympic programme, a significant impact has been noticed in the number of players and media and academic attention given to the sevens variant (Cruz-Ferreira et al 2017;Engebretsen & Steffen 2010).…”