School injury and gender differentials: a prospective cohort study

Abstract

This study assessed the role of certain individual characteristics in school injury among male and female adolescents. The sample included 2,398 subjects attending middle schools and high schools. Respondents completed a self-administered questionnaire at the beginning of the school year. School nurse completed a questionnaire on injury for each school injury occurred during the school year. The data was analyzed with the adjusted odds ratios (ORa) computed via the logistic models. The school injury was common (13% for both sexes). Sports/physical training injury was more frequent among girls (8.8% vs. 6.6%, P < 0.05) contrarily to the other types of injury (4.6% vs. 8.8%, P = 0.001). Sports/physical training injury was strongly associated with age <15 years (ORa 3.42) and presence of previous injury (2.63) among boys, and with age <15 years (2.02), presence of previous injury (2.94), not easily irritated (1.89), and irresponsible (1.59) among girls. The other types of injury were highly related to age <15 years (ORa 4.18), frequent use of psychotropic drugs (1.76), not living with both parents (1.65), being not calm (2.03), and presence of previous injury (1.82) among boys, and to age <15 years (2.59), obesity (3.24), and being not calm (1.84) among girls. The present study identified a number of potential risk factors for school injury among male and female adolescents. Preventive measures should be taken to make adolescents, their parents and teachers more aware of the risks and to find remedial measures.

Impact of sleep difficulty on single and repeated injuries in adolescents

“…The effects of sleep difficulty on injuries may be neglected by the adolescents themselves and by the teachers, schools and parents. The effects of psychotropic drugs used on injuries (Chau et al, 2007b;Palmer et al, 2014) may also be neglected.…”

“…This result could be explained by poor knowledge of activities and living environments, poor risk perception, poor risk awareness and poor vigilance. But we should acknowledge that materials and equipment do not generally take into account the lower physical/mental capabilities of adolescents (for instance big balls for small hands) (Chau et al, 2007b;Predine et al, 2002). On the contrary we found that older adolescents had a higher risk of outof-school injuries.…”

Oversized young athletes: a weighty concern

“…Chau et al 15 found an increased injury risk for obese girls but not for obese boys. Additionally, the risk associated with obesity in girls was not specific to sports participation but included non-sports physical activities.…”

“…Most studies examining the effect of obesity on injury risk in children and adolescents use BMI as the criterion measurement 3 4 5 13 14 15 16 17. The use of BMI may be an issue in sports involving large subjects whose muscular development is well above normal for their age and height.…”

“…Five studies were specific to injuries occurring in American football3 4 5 18 22 Four studies included injuries occurring in all activities, not specifically in sports,13 14 15 17 and one study included students involved in any high school sport16 The remaining three studies were on military recruits19 20 21 where, because the ages of the subjects were 18–22 years, and the basic training setting replicates the stress of sports training, these findings have some relevance for injury risk in young athletes.…”