Overuse shoulder and elbow injuries in youth competitive softball pitchers

• Main Author: Nurul Atiqah Binti Rosli
• Other Authors: Swarup Mukherjee
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: DRNTU::Science
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/70567
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The purpose of the study is to provide a descriptive epidemiological account of overuse shoulder and elbow injuries and to determine the possible relationship between training hours per week, years of training, age, and gender among youth competitive softball pitchers. 81 participants (55 females and 26 males) aged 13 to 19 years old, were recruited from 13 secondary schools and club teams for this study. All the participants underwent a retrospective survey adapted from Clarsen’s surveillance method limited to the past one year. There was a total of 69.8% prevalence of overuse injuries reported (78.3% in the shoulder region and 21.7% in the elbow region). Chi-square test (p<0.05) was performed to determine the relationship between gender, age, years of training and training hours per week but none of the variables was reported to have significant relationship with the prevalence of the overuse injuries. Odds ratio (OR) were calculated between the variables against the prevalence of the overuse injuries. Only the OR between females and males (OR=2.04) and OR between age group 13-16 and age group 17-19 (OR=2.06) against the prevalence of overuse shoulder injuries were significant. As for relationship with overuse elbow injuries, only OR between ≤5 years of training and >5 years (OR=2.13) of training was worth mentioning. The findings suggest that there was moderate-high prevalence of overuse shoulder and elbow injuries in youth competitive softball pitchers but the relationship between variables and prevalence of overuse injuries in this study may not be representative of the population.