Epidemiology of injury in Indian females field hockey players

Field hockey is one of the most popular team sports. Female players have different biomechanics hence the pattern of injury is also different. There is less number of epidemiological studies in Indian context specifically for females acting as a barrier for the injury prevention programme and the efficacy of the players. The purpose of the study was to identify and understand the injury patterns in terms of anatomical site, playing positions, playing surface, severity and time loss as well as association of intrinsic and extrinsic risk factors in context of Indian females, thereby providing a better scope in prevention of these injuries.

A cross sectional survey of 189 female field hockey players (mean age=16.85±2.15) of Odisha, Punjab, Haryana, U-17 and U-19 national championships was done with structured questionnaire having domains such as warm-up, cool-down, training-recovery characteristics, safety measures, current and past injury profile. The questionnaire was validated by using content validity ratio technique. Samples were selected by convenient snowball sampling technique and data was collected by scheduled interview method. Data was analyzed using Microsoft excel and SPSS 20.

Prevalence of field hockey injury is 25.3%. The most injured body part is anterior leg (31.13%) followed by knee (22.57%) and lower back (13.65%). Forwards (22.61%) and defenders (18.6%) are more injured whereas goalkeepers have least injury prevalence (13.16%). Grass injuries are more frequent (19.33%) than artificial turf (15%). 90.4% players are reported with affected performance. Noncontact injuries are more frequent (62.6%) than contact injuries (37.4%). Practice injuries are more (60.5%) than game injuries (39.5%). 65% players missed practice or game participation and 60% of them reported with time loss of <1 week followed by 35% with >3 weeks.

It is concluded that forward players got maximum injuries, anterior leg and knee region are the most injured parts, noncontact injuries are more common.