PREVALENCE AND INCIDENCE OF HEALTH PROBLEMS AND THEIR CHARACTERISATION IN BRAZILIAN PARA ATHLETES: A ONE-SEASON PROSPECTIVE STUDY

R. Resende¹, L. Pinheiro¹, A. Silva², F. Madaleno¹, E. Verhagen³, M.T. Mello², J. Ocarino¹

¹Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Physiotherapy, Belo Horizonte, Brazil, ²Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Sports, Belo Horizonte, Brazil, ³Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Public and Occupational Health, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Background: Most studies on the epidemiology of health problems in para athletes were limited to specific competitions, such as the Paralympic Games. Although these studies provided valuable information, they do not provide data on health problems throughout the sports season. Health problems may compromise para athletes' performance during sports season because they may need to reduce training volume and intensity. In addition, health problems may compromise para athletes' performance in daily living activities, like independent locomotion for those who need assistive devices, and consequently restrict social participation.

Purpose: To describe the characterisation, prevalence, incidence and severity of health problems in para athletes of the Brazilian Paralympic Reference Center during a sports season and to compare the prevalence of health problems between para athletics, para powerlifting and para swimming.

Methods: Thisprospective study was conducted from October 2019 to March 2020,corresponding to the pre-season period and competitive phase.The Oslo Sports Trauma Research Center Questionnaire on Health Problems was used to record injuries and illnesses every week for 24 weeks. This questionnaire contains four key questions about the consequences of health problems on sports participation, training volume and sports performance, and the degree to which they have experienced symptoms during the past week. The characterisation, prevalence, incidence and severity of health problems were described for each modality. The sports modalities were compared with a one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) or Kruskal-Wallis test according to data distribution. Tukey or Mann-Whitney post hoc tests located the significant difference.

Results: Thirty-five (8 females and 27 males) para athletes participated. Most of the injuries occurred in the shoulder, and most illnesses caused respiratory and gastrointestinal symptoms. The average weekly prevalence and the incidence rate of health problems were 40.6% (95% CI 17.0–64.4) and 12.7 (95% CI 9.6–15.9) per 1000 athlete hours, respectively. We also provided the severity levels of all and substantial health problems. Para powerlifting had the highest prevalence of all and substantial health problems, para swimming had the lowest prevalence of injuries and para athletics had the lowest prevalence of illnesses.

Conclusions: Brazilian para athletes showed a high prevalence and incidence of health problems throughout the season. The body regions most frequently affected by injuries were the shoulder, ankle and hip/groin, and nausea, abdominal pain, and fatigue/malaise were the most common symptoms of illnesses. Finally, para powerlifting had the highest prevalence of all and substantial health problems, para swimming had the lowest prevalence of injuries, and para athletics had the lowest prevalence of illnesses.

Implications: Para sport health teams should carefully monitor the occurrence and severity of shoulder injuries in non-ambulant athletes and ankle and hip/groin injuries in para athletics. Para athletes and para swimming teams must be aware of the high prevalence of respiratory and gastrointestinal illnesses.Para powerlifting athletes and para powerlifting teams must be aware of the high prevalence of health problems and also of the high prevalence of substantial sudden and gradual onset injuries.

Funding acknowledgements: CNPq—09/2022-, FAPEMIG—CDS - APQ-01017-17, and Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior—Brasil (CAPES)—Finance Code 001.

Keywords:
Epidemiology
Injury
Para athletics

Topics:
Sport & sports injuries
Disability & rehabilitation

Did this work require ethics approval? Yes

Institution: Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais

Committee: Ethics committee of the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais

Ethics number: 27518619.4.0000.5149