Injuries in Swedish Youth Athletics. The KLUB-study.

It is well known that participation in sports activities as a youth has several health benefits, but at the same time, studies report that the risk is high to obtain injuries related to participation. There is, however, increasing evidence that many of these injuries can be prevented if necessary measures are taken. So far, most studies examining sports injuries have been conducted on adult elite and among team sports, for example football, ice hockey and bandy. How injury patterns present in individual sports and among youth is not as well documented. A major problem in athletics is that studies have shown an almost identical prevalence and incidence of injury associated with athletics among both young and adult athletes.

Today there are very few published studies on international incidence of injuries among adolescent athletes in athletics and no describing the incidence in Swedish Athletics. These studies have different study design, definitions of injury and rather small groups of athletes, making it difficult to draw conclusions that can be the basis for prevention programs. What after all can be inferred from these previous studies is that injuries related to overuse seems to be most prevalent. Prospective studies are therefore needed to be able to plan and carry out measures to prevent the occurrence of injuries. We intend to carry out an intervention study among athletics youths aged 12-15 years. Before this is carried out, the investigators need to have adequate knowledge of the study population for the effective implementation of the intervention study.

The overall aim of the project KLUB is to study the prevalence and incidence of injuries among athletics youths aged 12-15 years. A particular focus will be placed on identifying factors associated with injury occurrence. The knowledge obtained will be used to allow for injury prevention in the future.