Pattern of pitch-side sports injury management in a university level – A one-season observational study

Abstract

Introduction & Aims: Sports injuries is a great challenge for university athletes to sustain active sports participation, thus introduction of qualified clinical sports trainer (CST) into sport teams who are capable of being first-line identification and management of injuries on pitch-side may sooth the problem. Limited studies investigated the effect of introducing CST on pitch-side injuries. Method: Injury record form gathered from the university sports team's representative in the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) were completed by CST attached to teams, including soccer, basketball, volleyball, handball and rugby with a total of athletes, information was collected from university athletes (n=, age, .±.) that requested consultation during training or competitions. The information collected was used to investigate on sports injury pattern as well as sport injury immediate management pattern of the university athletes. Results: Regarding sports injury pattern in university setting, there was slightly higher visiting rate by male (.%) than female (.%). The most frequently injured body-part is the lower extremity (.%), followed by upper extremity (.%) and head injuries were relatively less common (.%). Severity of most injuries were mild (.%) with the commonest injury being sprain (.%) and overuse injury (.%), while acute swelling was relatively less common (.%). The commonest cause was due to overuse (.%) followed by contact with other players (.%). Moreover, concerning the sports injury immediate management pattern, majority of the injuries reported did not need referral to medical professionals for example physiotherapist or doctors (.%) and were able to return to play (.%) right after the immediate consultation and management by CST after sideline TOTAPS assessment []. Taping (.%) and the RICER protocol (.%) were of the most frequently adopted method by the CST as the pitch-side initial treatment. Conclusions: Over half of the complains did not require referral to medical professionals with presence of CST to help with sideline injury assessments, and players were able to return to play after immediate handling. Further investigation is needed on whether presence of CST can help to reduce long term injury rate.