A Prospective, Longitudinal Analysis of Division I Collegiate Football Injuries

Background: Injuries can have a serious impact on the quality of life and long-term health of college athletes. The NCAA has reported a rate of 8.1 injuries for every 1000 exposures in collegiate football between 2004 and 2009. Predictors of increased injury risk have been identified in adolescent athletes, but have not been thoroughly studied in collegiate athletes. Purpose: Report the types and rates of injuries in college football players over the course of the first year of a prospective epidemiological-biomechanical study aimed at identifying injury risk factors in collegiate football players. Methods and Study Design: The data is part of a prospective, longitudinal cohort study. All football players who were included in the official team roster on the first day of practiced were enrolled in the study. The season was divided into a preseason and the first and second halves of the regular season. An exposure was either a practice or game in which the athlete was cleared to participate by the team physician. An injury was defined as time missed secondary to not being cleared by the physician for exposure participation. The type of each injury was recorded. Injury rates (IR) were used in mid-p exact tests to test differences in each third of the season and among body parts. Comparative results are presented as Injury Rate Ratios (IRR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI). Significance was set at a p <0.05. Results: 103 athletes completed the study. 46 injuries were sustained in 9245 athletic exposures (IR of 4.98/1000 AE). The preseason IR was 5.80 and for the first and second halves of the season were 4.78 and 4.84 per 1000 AE, respectively. Concussions were the most common injury (IR 1.41). The IR of concussions was significantly greater in preseason (IR 3.09) than in the first half of the regular season (IR 0.28) (IRR 11; CI 1.38 to 87.9; p < 0.05). There were no differences in the IR of concussions between preseason and the second half of the regular season or between each halves of the season. Conclusions: A lower IR was seen compared to the NCAA records (4.98 to 8.1 /1000 exposures). The highest rate of concussion was in the preseason. Significance of Findings: Our prospective longitudinal biomechanical-epidemiological studies will seek to identify risk factors finding athletes at increased risk for injury.