Gender differences in sport injury risk and types of injuries: a retrospective twelve-month study on cross-country skiers, swimmers, long-distance runners and soccer players

This twelve months survey compared injury risk and injurytypes by genders (312 females, 262 males) in 15- to 35-year-oldcross-country skiers, swimmers, long-distance runners andsoccer players. more male than female athletes reported at leastone acute injury (44% vs. 35%, p < 0.05), and more male thanfemale runners reported at least one overuse injury (69% vs.51%, p < 0.05). when the incidence of acute and overuse injuriesboth separately and combined was calculated per 1000training hours, per 1000 competition hours and all exposurehours combined we found no gender differences in either ofthese comparisons. after adjustment for sport event males wereat increased risk for posterior thigh overuse injuries compared tofemales (relative risk (rr) 5.8, 95% confidence interval (ci) 1.3to 26.4, p < 0.05) while females were at increased risk for overuseinjuries in the ankle compared to males (rr 3.1, 95% ci 1.0to 9.3, p < 0.05). after adjustment for exposure time (injuries/1000 exposure hours) significance of the difference betweenthe sexes in overuse injury to the ankle persisted (female 0.11vs. male 0.02 injuries/1000 exposure hours, p < 0.05). six athleteshad an anterior cruciate ligament (acl) injury, of whomfour were female soccer players. after combining all reportedacute and overuse ankle and knee injuries, the proportion ofathletes with such injury was higher in the female compared tomale soccer players (75% and 54% respectively; p < 0.05), butno difference was found in such injuries when calculated per1000 exposure hours. in conclusion, we found some genderdifferences in sport-related injuries, but most of these differencesseemed to be explained at least in part by differences inthe amount of training.