Advances in Physical Education
2013. Vol.3, No.2, 89-91
Published Online May 2013 in SciRes (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ape) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ape.2013.32015
Study on Sport Injuries among College Students in Wuhan
Ying Zhao
Department of Physical Education, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, China
Received January 14th, 2013; revised February 16th, 2013; accepted March 1st, 2013
Copyright © 2013 Ying Zhao. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution
License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original
work is properly cited.
Objective: To investigate the characteristics and the precaution of and reduction of sport injuries among
college students in Wuhan, and to provide evidence for the prevention. Methods: Stratified and cluster
random sampling method was used to choose 1103 students from a university in Wuhan. A self-designed
questionnaire was used to investigate the characteristics of sport injuries among172 college students who
had experienced sport injuries. Results: The incidence of sport injuries among college students in Wuhan
was 15.59%. Sport injuries were closely related with sports events, sports technique, physical condition of
exerciser, and ground equipment. The incidence of sport injuries was higher in basketball, soccer and
physical fitness exercise. Sport injuries were mainly soft tissue damage. The locations of injuries were
primary in ankle joint (56.69%). Injuries induced by basketball & soccer were prone to occur in physical
education class, while injuries caused by physical fitness exercise were prone to occur in extracurricular
activities. Conclusion: The incidence of sport injuries was higher in basketball & soccer, and sport inju-
ries were prone to occur in physical education class. It was imperative to strengthen the measures of pre-
vention and intervention in college sport injuries.
Keywords: College Students; Sport Injuries; Prevention
Introduction
With the development of Chinese higher education and the
increasing improvement of various sports equipment and facili-
ties indoors and outdoors, more and more college students were
keen on participating in different sports games, events and
competitions. When actively taking part in sports games and
events, they were often prone to suffer from injuries such as
skin scratches, soft tissue and ankles damage, which greatly
spoiled their enthusiasm and confidence in the prospective
sports games and activities, on one hand, and on the other hand,
influenced their study and life, even brought about lifelong
regrets to students. Though this situation has aroused the
awareness of higher institutes and PE teachers, we knew, inju-
ries were always accompanied by the sports games. Thus it was
necessary to perform a durable preventive and intervention
research to avoid sport injuries.
This paper, based on the investigation and analysis of the
questionnaire from 1103 college students, with the qualitative
and quantitative method, was intended to put forward some
suitable suggestions to prevent and intervene sport injuries and
arouse the awareness of physical educationists from higher
education and institutes to attach more importance to imparting
the knowledge of protecting to students when they were work-
ing out and performing the sports games.
Methods
Subjects
Take 1103 college students of 30 classes out of 2010 and
2011 grades from a certain comprehensive university of Sci-
ence and Technology of the Ministry of Education in Wuhan as
subjects to investigate sport injuries for a period of one year.
Criteria of Sport Injuries
The criteria of sport injuries included the following situations:
1) the injuries were treated in clinic or hospital; 2) the injuries
were processed by oneself or classmates and teachers for emer-
gency.
Quality Control
Before the formal investigation, the pre-investigation was
done on 10 subjects on the spot as in order to guarantee the
quality of the survey and unified standard.
Statistical Analysis
Data was analyzed by SPSS17.0. Descriptive analysis, such
as the description of the frequency, rate calculation, 2 tables
using χ2 test was used.
Results
The Sociological Characteristics of Subjects
Age of the subjects ranged from 19 to 23 years old, the av-
erage age was 20.44 ± 1.22 years. 34.88% of the students came
from rural areas, 31.98% of them from towns, 33.14% of the
students from large and medium-sized cities; one child of the
family and non-one child accounting of 47% and 53%. Of the

Y. ZHAO
1103 college students, 172 suffered from the sport injuries in
the past school year. The incidence of total sport injuries was
15.59%. Of which, male students 137, accounting for 79.65
percent, the female 35, accounting for 20.35%.
Sport Injuries Caused by Events in College Students
The survey showed that sport injuries were closely related
with sports events. Sport injuries occurred mostly in the three
kinds of sport activities, such as basketball, football and physi-
cal fitness movement, moreover, the incidence occurred in
basketball and football was much higher than that in other sport
events. Details were shown in Table 1.
The results of the interviews showed that basketball and
football were the most popular sports activities. Competitions
on these events were frequently held on a large or small scale
by college students. Because these ball games are team activi-
ties, which can help cultivate the spirit of teamwork, schools
and faculties attach more importance to these. But as ball
games was fierce, and male students were aggressive and eager
for success, which often leaded to a higher incidence of sport
injuries. While the personal items such as table tennis, badmin-
ton and martial arts have no direct physical confrontation and
the amount of exercise was easy to control, compared with the
ball games, sport injuries occurred less frequently.
Classifications and Vulnerable Parts of Sport Injuries
in College Students
We knew different sports activities would result in different
sport injuries respectively, also the classification of sport inju-
ries were not identical, until now its uniform criteria had not
been settled down.
Referencing to sport injuries classification by Qu Mianyu
(2003), combining with the characteristics of college students’
sport injuries, sport injuries was classified as four: skin damage,
ligament tear, joints dislocation and fracture. Generally speak-
ing, sport injuries were more common in small wounds, more
cases like the injuries of skin, muscle, tendon and joint soft
tissue so on were likely to happen to college students in sport
injuries. From the constitute of sport injuries, the top three are
skin damage (38.95%), muscle ligament tear or rupture,
(33.14%) dislocation of the joint (24.42%). Concussion of the
brain and visceral rupture are less to happen to students. Details
were listed in Table 2.
The results showed that ankle injuries were the most com-
mon accounting for 56.69% of all sport injuries, followed by
the knee, accounting for 25.54%, and then hands, head and
Table 1.
Sport injuries of college students caused by different events.
Events N Percentage (%)
Basketball 81 47.09
Football 49 28.49
Physical fitness 27 15.70
Volleyball 6 3.49
Others 9 5.23
Total 172 100
other parts are on the third rank, accounting for 17.87%.
Occurrence Time of Sport Injuries
The results showed that sport injuries of college students oc-
curred more in extracurricular activities, the percentage of ex-
tracurricular activities injuries was higher than that of sports
activities in physical education class organized by teachers.
Details were listed in Table 3.
Causes of Sport Injuries
The results showed that the causes of the sport injuries were
various. Sport injuries were closely related with sports events,
sports technique, physical condition of exerciser, and ground
equipment. In this study, the main causes were body collision,
physical fatigue, poor quality, and lack of the self-protection
awareness, insufficient preparation, wrong moving and so on.
Details were listed in Table 4.
Table 2.
Classifications of sport injuries in college students.
Classifications of sport injuries N Percentage (%)
Skin damage 67 38.95
Muscle ligament tear or rupture 57 33.14
Joint dislocation 42 24.42
Fracture 2 1.16
Others 4 2.33
Total 172 100
Table 3.
The occurrence time of sport injuries in college students.
Occurrence time of sport injuries N Percentage (%)
Extracurricular activities 125 72.67
Physical education 37 21.51
Sports competitions 7 4.07
Others 3 1.74
Total 172 100
Table 4. Causes of sport injuries in college students.
Causes of sport injuries N %
Body collision 45 26.16
Fatigue/poor quality 38 22.09
Lack of the self-protection awareness 36 20.94
Insufficient preparation 36 20.93
Incorrect technical movements 37 15.70
Overload of exercise 12 6.98
Psychological factors 11 6.40
Ground equipment 4 2.33
Total 172 100
90

Y. ZHAO
Characteristics of the Top Three Sport Events of
Sport Injuries
The results showed that sport injuries in basketball, football
and the physical quality sports activities were different. The
difference of occurrence time in these three events was statisti-
cally significant (p < 0.05). e.g., the incidence of sport injuries
in basketball and football occurred mainly in the physical edu-
cation classes, while the incidence of that in physical fitness
exercise often happened in extracurricular activities. As to vul-
nerable parts, injuries types and insufficient preparation, the
differences were not statistically significant (p > 0.05). Details
were listed in Table 5.
Discussion
Sport injuries not only brought misfortune and suffering to
the students and parents, but also affected the normal teaching
order and plan of physical education class. From this investiga-
tion, the incidence of sport injuries of college students in Wu-
han city was 15.59%, which is lower than that of other two
cities of Guangzhou and Hefei (Bai, Zhang, & Chen, 2011;
Chen, Liu, & Ye, 2007).
In this investigation, sport injuries in college students oc-
curred mainly in basketball, football and physical fitness exer-
cise, and the injuries rate was far higher than that of other
sports, which was in keeping wit to other researches’ (Bai,
Zhang, & Chen, 2011; Chen, Liu, & Ye, 2007). These events
were aerobic metabolism item of improvement heart-lung ca-
pability endurance that was keeping long time, active strength
high. It was especially more physical in basketball and football
and the pace was faster, demanding good physical qualities.
Playing basketball needed complex and changeable techniques,
strong adaptability. Players were frequently constrained by the
opponent during the confrontation, causing in-coordination and
an error action, contrary to the principles of biomechanics. All
of which were apt to cause injuries occurred. The characteris-
tics of being difficult and violent confrontation and trans.pts
fast increased the risks of damage. Movement unskilled, the use
of unreasonable, in violation of the rules, rough play wound
Table 5.
Occurrence time of sport injuries in basketball, football and physical
fitness exercise.
Time of occurrence
Extracurricular activities Physical educatedOthers
Kinds of
exercise
n (%) n (%) n (%)
Basketball 18 (22.22) 61 (75.31) 2 (2.47)
Football 4 (8.16) 41 (83.67) 4 (8.16)
Physical fitness
exercise 12 (44.44） 11 (40.74） 4 (24.81)
χ2 = 32.970, p = 0.000
increase opportunities for injuries. It was found that fatigue was
one of the risk factors of sport injuries. The proportion that
students playing ball more than 1.5 hours was much higher than
those less than 1.5 hours. Therefore, it was recommended that
the time not be too long, and not exceed 80 minutes.
Particularly, the results showed that college students were
prone to be injured in basketball, football teaching class, and
the incidence of injuries was higher than that in extracurricular
activities, which should arouse the attention of the PE teachers.
Therefore, teachers should consider the possibilities of all kinds
of unexpected events in advance before PE class, and take some
preventive measures. Also teachers should enhance their sense
of responsibility. At the same time, ability to protect themselves
during movement should be focused among students. It was
found that capacity of self-protection was closely related to
injuries accident (Wang & Yu, 2005). Presently, college sports
work both “teaching” and “learning” didn’t pay enough atten-
tion to the ability of “self-protection”. So this situation should
be adjusted immediately to avoid the occurrence of damage.
Although the survey results showed that items such as table
tennis, tennis, badminton, and martial arts almost no damage
occurs, it did not mean these items would not cause sport inju-
ries. In practical work, we still have to be vigilant, pay attention
to the prevention of injuries occurred.
Recommendations
The sport of basketball and football was popular in universi-
ties. And the incidences occurred in these two events were
much higher than that in other sport events, which was not only
related with technical characteristic, but also with poor physical
fitness and weak awareness of self-protection. So prevention of
sport injuries was a long-term task in the future.
College students are prone to be injured in basketball, foot-
ball teaching class, and the incidence of injuries was higher
than that in extracurricular activities, which should arouse the
attention of the PE teachers. Teachers should enhance their
sense of responsibility. College sports work both “teaching”
and “learning” didn’t pay enough attention to the ability of
“self-protection”.
REFERENCES
Bai, W. D., Zhang, Y., & Chen, F. (2011). Analysis of students’ move-
ment injuries and its influencing factors in Guangzhou University.
Chinese Journal of School He al t h, 32, 1346-1350.
Chen, X. M., Liu, X., & Ye, D. Q. (2007). Epidemiological survey of
college students’ sport injuries of two universities in Hefei. Chinese
Journal of School Health, 28, 536-537.
Qu, M. Y. (2003). Sports medicine (3rd ed.). Beijing: Peking University
Medical Press.
Wang, J. J., & Yu, D. S. (2005). Research of college students’ self-
protection development in some colleges and universities in Beijing.
Journal of Beijing Sports University, 28, 681-683.