Summary

Although lower extremity injuries were expectedly the most common injuries seen in collegiate basketball players, the current study demonstrates that these athletes suffer from a variety of injuries suggesting that injury prevention techniques should be expanded to include all areas of the body.

Abstract

Introduction

With the growing popularity of basketball at all levels domestically and globally, there has been an increased emphasis in understanding the injury patterns of these athletes. As the majority of the current literature analyzing basketball injuries focuses on the foot and ankle, there is relatively limited evidence on the complete injury profile of basketball players. This study sought to characterize the types of injuries affecting elite intercollegiate female and male basketball players. Upon establishing commonly recognized injury patterns as well as associated return to sport data, this study can potentially help guide prevention and treatment protocols.

Methods

A conference-specific injury database was utilized to perform a retrospective review of injuries for male and female Division I collegiate basketball players from 2017-2021. Analysis included musculoskeletal injuries stratified by anatomic location, gender, time missed and injury diagnosis.

Injury rate (IR) per 1000 athlete exposure hours (AEH) was calculated by the following formula:
IR per 1000 AEH= [(Number of total in-season injuries) / (Season length in weeks * 20 hrs/week * number of athletes on the team)] * 1000.

Relative risk (RR) was used to compare estimated athlete risk per year between genders with statistical significance being defined by a 95% confidence interval (CI) not including one (p < 0.05).

Results

A total of 663 college basketball players out of 853 (77.7%) suffered 4532 total injuries. Significantly more females suffered an injury (314/360, 87.2%) when compared to males (349/493, 70.8%; RR:1.23 [95%CI: 1.15 - 1.32]).

The most common injuries across genders were ankle and hindfoot injuries accounting for 1007 out of 4532 (22.2%), knee injuries accounting for 750 injuries (16.5%), head/face injuries accounting for 532 injuries (11.7%), forefoot injuries accounting for 446 injuries (9.8%) and hand/wrist/forearm injuries accounting for 359 injuries (7.9%). Women were significantly more likely to suffer a knee injury (RR:1.49 [95%CI: 1.27-1.75]), a head/face injury (RR:1.32 [95%CI: 1.09-1.60]) or a midfoot/forefoot injury (RR:1.42 [95%CI: 1.14-1.76]).

One hundred and ninety-one concussions affected 146 out of 853 athletes (17.1%). Eighty-two out of 360 female athletes (22.8%) suffered a concussion as compared to 64 out of 493 male athletes (13.0%; RR:1.23, [95%CI: 1.15-1.32]). Return to sport data was not specified for 22 out of 191 concussions. Of the remaining 169 concussions, 17 (10.1%) resulted in more than three weeks away from sport.

Conclusion

Lower extremity injuries were expectedly the most common injuries seen in both male and female basketball players, however these injuries did not typically keep athletes away from sport for a substantial period of time. Most current injury prevention strategies and proprioceptive training exercises focus on the lower extremity, with the ankles in particular. The current study, however, demonstrates that basketball players suffer from a variety of injuries suggesting that injury prevention techniques should be expanded to include all areas of the body.

Understanding the injury patterns and the prognoses of such injuries can help physicians guide the expectations of these athletes, optimize the patient-athlete relationship and ultimately keep our collegiate basketball players safe.