Sports‐related Injuries in Children

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Abstract
Objective: To describe the demographics and types of sports‐related injuries (SRIs) in children. Methods: The authors performed a retrospective chart review of children 5‐18 years of age diagnosed as having an SRI in a pediatric emergency department (ED) during a two‐year period. Patients were identified by ICD‐9 codes. Data collected were age, sex, sport, ED interventions, consultations, mechanism, location, and injury type. Pairwise comparisons were reported as odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals. Results: Six hundred seventy‐seven SRIs fit the inclusion criteria; 480 of the patients were male (71%). The mean ages of the males and females were 13.0 years (SD ± 3.0 yr) and 12.4 years (SD ± 2.9 yr), respectively. The six most common sports implicated were basketball (19.5%), football (17.1%), baseball/softball (14.9%), soccer (14.2%), in‐line skating (Rollerblading)/skating (5.7%), and hockey (4.6%). Sprains/strains (32.0%), fractures (29.4%), contusions/abrasions (19.3%), and lacerations (9.7%) accounted for 90% of injury types. Pairwise comparison of the four injury types in the six sports listed showed significant associations for contusions/abrasions in baseball, sprains/strains in basketball, fractures in Rollerblading/skating, and lacerations in hockey. Age variance, including all sports, of the younger group (5‐11 yr) in fractures and the older group (12‐18 yr) in sprains was significant. The most common injury location was wrist/hand (28%), followed by head/face (22%) and ankle/foot (18%). Each had significant sport‐specific predilections. Contact with person or object was the mechanism for >50% of the SRIs. Sport‐specific mechanisms followed lines drawn from the sport‐specific injury types and locations. Conclusions: The pediatric age group incurs a variety of injuries in numerous sports with diverse sex, age, mechanism, location, injury type, and sport‐specific differences.

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