Physical activity-related injuries of college students in southern China: A 1-year prospective study

Abstract

This prospective study was to describe the incidence and characteristics of physical activity-related injuries (PARI) among college students in southern China. Online questionnaires and telephone interviews were combined to investigate the physical activity (PA) participation and PARI occurrences every two weeks. Totally, 84 college students (men: 49; women: 35) with a mean age of 19.4 years completed the entire 1-year follow-up. Overall, 14250.3 PA exposure hours were collected and 36 PARI episodes were reported by 26 students, with an injury incidence density of 2.53 injuries per 1000 PA exposure hours and an injury risk of 0.43 injuries/student/year. July to September accounted for a highest proportion of injuries and half of the injuries happened in the evening. The majority of injuries occurred outdoors, happened in non-contact activities, were acute and involved the lower limbs, with sprains and strains being the primary injury types. Of all injuries, 80.6% resulted in PA withdrawal immediately and 58.3% led to absence from the next planned PA. No significant difference was found between men and women. This study reveals the problem of PARI among college students, which provides the direction for the prevention of PARI in this population.

Sports-Related Musculoskeletal Injuries in Medical Students

“…The injury rate was 3.7 per 1000 playing or practice hours, which was much higher than other reports; injury rates from 1.3 to 2.64 per 1000 playing hours have been reported among adolescents and young adults. [ 3 9 19 20 ] Five students among the participants reported having preexisting MSK pathology, of these two sustained sports-related injuries, and both were treated conservatively.…”

“…Our findings of males having higher rates of injury than females concur with those of other authors. [ 7 9 20 21 22 ] It is generally assumed that males take more risk, are less protected than females, and, consequently, have been reported to have higher injury rates. [ 3 ] Injured males had higher mean playing hours per week (8 ± 5.7 hours per week vs. 4 ± 4.5 hours per week) and also had a higher BMI (23.95 ± 4.8 vs. 22.57 ± 4) compared with the injured females.…”

Assessing emotional, empathic and coping skills in Spanish undergraduates in Health Sciences and Social Sciences

“…Finally, doing sport and engaging in physical activity provides a range of benefits, including physical fitness, mental health, psychological impacts, emotional intelligence, self-esteem, body image and the reduced risk of premature death and chronic diseases (Acebes-Sánchez et al, 2019;Adarve et al, 2019;Alvear-Galindo et al, 2014;Grasdalsmoen et al, 2020;López et al, 2021;Rivas-Espinosa et al, 2019;Sanchis-Soler et al, 2022;Tang et al, 2020). The World Health Organisation (WHO) established the importance of regular physical activity and published the Global Recommendations on physical activity for health in 2010.…”

“…Thus, good emotional development, proper empathy, intrapersonal resources, and solid social skills may help individuals develop positive physical and psychological health, feel less psychosocial stress, achieve better academic performance, attainment and success, and develop greater life satisfaction, among other elements (Molano-Tobar et al, 2021;Morales-Rodríguez, 2020;Ordóñez, et al, 2014;Parhiala et al, 2018;Vega-Hernández et al, 2017;Villanueva et al, 2017;Wang et al, 2016). However, these intrapersonal resources are not always developed in university students, as they are effected by diverse variables, such as gender and age where the women and older students have better scores (Cañero et al, 2019;Irfan et al, 2019;Livingstone & Isaacowitz, 2018;Serrada-Tejeda et al, 2022;Quince et al, 2016), type of degree course (Balaji et al, 2019;Fernández-Rodríguez et al, 2019), engagement in physical activity or sport improve self-esteem, self-concept, social skills and emotional manage (Acebes-Sánchez et al, 2019;Adarve et al, 2019;Alvear-Galindo et al, 2014;Grasdalsmoen et al, 2020;López et al, 2021;Rivas-Espinosa et al, 2019;Tang et al, 2020), free time satisfaction (Misra & McKean, 2000), socioeconomic status (Balaji et al, 2019;Vine, et al, 2012) and type of family (Balaji et al, 2019), etc. Incorporating these, and other higher education resources, during the years of university students' educational and professional training could help them effectively cope with stress, anxiety, emotional distress and might enhance performance (Balaji et al, 2019;Cañero et al, 2019;Dilber et al, 2016;Martínez-Lorca, et al, 2017).…”

The associated factors for physical activity-related injuries among first-year university students in southern China from a biopsychosocial perspective

“…Nevertheless, given the growing public health concern of PA inactivity among adults, investigating the associated factors of PA-related injuries among university students becomes particularly essential. This is because university students transition from the academic burdens of previous education, gain more freedom and independence, and have increased opportunities to participate in various forms of PA ( 4 , 13 , 31 ). These individuals are also in a crucial transition period for lifestyle and habits ( 32 ).…”