Sport and recreation musculoskeletal injuries in Irish primary school children.

Abstract

The physical, cognitive, mental and social health benefits that occur in school children due to participation in sport and recreation are vast (Abernethy and MacAuley, 2003; Bloemers et al., 2012; Warburton et al., 2006). However obesity has now become a global epidemic (Wang and Lobstein, 2006) and the percentage of obese or overweight Irish children aged between 6 - 13 is increasing (Whelton et al., 2007). In fact in Ireland, 30% of 9 year old girls and 22% of 9 year old boys were overweight or obese (Layte and McCrory, 2011). While many children partake in sport and recreational activities both during and outside of school, encouraging increased participation in exercise and sport in Ireland may be essential in this population to reduce the incidence of obesity. An inherent risk of injury exists during physical activity. When a child sustains an injury, the resulting pain and disability can lead to absence from school, sport and recreation, reduced socialisation, enhanced future injury risk and increased socioeconomic burden to the parents and health service (Abernethy and MacAuley, 2003; Collard et al., 2011; O’Connor et al., 2016; van Mechelen and Verhagen, 2005). The negative psychological effects following injury may also lead to a reduced enthusiasm for sport and recreation (Bloemers et al., 2012) and injuries have been shown to reduce the development in physical fitness by 18% in primary school children over a two and a half year period (Rexen et al., 2016).