Pattern of sport injuries and its association with injury prevention strategies in male professional footballers in Calabar, Nigeria

Background: Understanding the pattern of sports injuries is essential to developing targeted injury prevention programs. This study investigated the pattern of sport injuries among male professional footballers in Calabar and evaluated the association between sport injury patterns and injury prevention strategies. Materials and Method: The study was a cross-sectional survey that recruited 130 male footballers from six professional clubs via consecutive sampling. Participants’ ages were obtained, while anthropometric parameters were measured with standard instruments. Pattern of sports injury and injury prevention strategies were assessed with an adapted questionnaire on injury prevention strategies from a previous study. Descriptive statistics of mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentage were used to summarize data, while Chi-square was use to analyze the association between injury patterns and injury prevention strategies at p < 0.05. Results: The mean age, height, weight, and BMI of participants were 25.19±4.26years, 1.70±0.07m, 67.65±7.95Kg and 23.42±3.36Kg/m2, respectively. A 63.8% risk of sustaining injury was found with the most frequent injury being dislocation (27.7%), followed by sprains (26.2%). The thigh (43.1%) was the most exposed injured body part, while the knee was the most (40%) injured body part. Significant association (χ2=68.9, p=0.010) was obtained between injury prevention strategies and nature of sport injury. Injury prevention strategies were not significantly associated (p>0.05) with part of the body injured. Conclusion: A high risk of sport injuries exist among male professional footballers in Calabar, with dislocations and sprains as the most common injuries. Injury prevention strategies were associated with the nature of injuries sustained.