Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Pediatric Craniofacial Injury Trends in Youth Sports

Despite an abundance of literature surrounding sports-related pediatric craniofacial injuries, few studies have explored the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on these cases. The objective of this study was to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the rates of pediatric craniofacial injuries within 8 individual sports. Data were collected using the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) and included craniofacial injuries reported from 2014 to 2023. Craniofacial injury cases were categorized into 8 sports: football, baseball, basketball, soccer, softball, wrestling, golf, and volleyball. An interrupted time series analysis was used to determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on injury trends within each sport. The study focused on athletes between the ages of 12 and 17 years. The results demonstrated that most fluctuations in injury rates directly following the pandemic were significant, particularly in basketball, soccer, wrestling, softball, baseball ( P <0.01), and football ( P <0.001). Overall, the pandemic had a statistically significant effect on craniofacial injury rates in all 8 sports analyzed ( P <0.05). The trends observed over time indicate that after a steep decline in participation and injury reporting in 2020, each sport exhibited unique changes in injury patterns. These findings emphasize the need for further investigation into specific contributing factors such as changes in equipment, safety precautions, and overall youth sports participation that likely influenced the variability in postpandemic injury trends across different sports.