Analysis of injuries incurred by amateur female rugby players: A case of selected clubs in Kampala district, Uganda

Abstract

Rugby players are exposed to injuries which are most especially on the upper and lower limbs since the game involves a lot of collisions. The purpose of the study was to analyse the injuries incurred by 25 amateur female rugby players in two selected clubs in Kampala District, Uganda. The objectives of the study were to establish the injuries incurred by female rugby players during rugby playing, to identify the factors that lead to injuries incurred by the female players during the game and to establish relationship between causes and injuries during training and competition. It was hypothesized that: there was no significant relationship between the occurrence of injuries and the time of the day of occurrence; and that there was no significant relationship between the occurrence of injuries and the phase of play; and finally there was no significant relationship between the occurrence of injuries and the site of the body at which the injury occurred. Questionnaires for players, coaches and medical personnel as well as an observation checklist were used to collect data. Finally, an interview guide was used to collect the information that could not be obtained using the other tools. The study was mainly quantitative in which descriptive statistics was used and data__was_analyzed using SPSS. The hypotheses were tested using Chi-square and Pearson's correlation at P < 0.05. Both frequency and cross-tables were used for data presentation. The results indicated that most injuries (92%) were bruises caused by collision with other players and many injuries (56%) were sustained during the middle phase of the games. Participants experienced most injuries around the knee and the treatment given to most injured participants (47%) was pain killers. Occurrence of injuries had no significant relationship to the time of occurrence of the injury, phase within which the injury occurred and the degree of the injury. Based on the findings, the study recommended consideration of time of the day, necessary protective gear and presence of qualified and full time medical personnel during the competitions in addition to sensitization of the teams administration and players about the usefulness of injury prevention in relation to retention and performance of the players. More research should be carried out to find out about injury management and rehabilitation of injured athletes.