{"id":10354,"date":"2023-01-13T06:00:21","date_gmt":"2023-01-13T05:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bjsm\/?p=10354"},"modified":"2023-01-07T01:03:58","modified_gmt":"2023-01-07T00:03:58","slug":"suffering-a-concussion-increases-injury-risk-in-male-rugby-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bjsm\/2023\/01\/13\/suffering-a-concussion-increases-injury-risk-in-male-rugby-union\/","title":{"rendered":"Suffering a concussion increases injury risk in male Rugby Union"},"content":{"rendered":"

Key words: concussion, hamstring, ankle, shoulder, rugby<\/span><\/p>\n

Rugby Union has one of the highest injury rates of any team sport, with concussion and lower limb injuries particularly common (<\/span>1,2)<\/span>. Players also sustain multiple injuries during their career, which may impact their risk of future injuries (<\/span>3)<\/span>. This blog summarises our recent <\/span>original research<\/span><\/a> into injury risk in male professional Rugby Union (<\/span>4)<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why did we do this study?<\/b><\/p>\n

Concussion has been shown to increase injury risk in Rugby Union (<\/span>5,6)<\/span>, but<\/span> is it the only injury to have this effect? Are changes in concussion return to rugby protocols needed or is the increased injury risk part of injury occurrence regardless of what injury was sustained?<\/span><\/p>\n

We sought to assess two types of injury risk of common injuries in male Rugby Union:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. A player\u2019s change in injury risk (comparing injury risk before and after a common injury<\/span>)<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Differences in subsequent injury risk following a common injured compared to all other injuries<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    How did we carry out this study?<\/b><\/p>\n

    We monitored time-loss injuries of Welsh professional male Rugby Union players over seven seasons<\/span>,<\/span> from<\/span> 2012\/13 to 2018\/19. A total of 2888 injuries were sustained by 382 players. The 5<\/span> \u00a0injuries with the highest match injury incidence were: concussion, thigh haematomas, hamstring muscle strains, acromioclavicular joint injuries and lateral ankle sprains. These were named<\/span> common injuries. We then modelled the risk of injury before sustaining a common injury after the risk of injury after it. This allowed us to quantify changes in a player\u2019s injury risk. Subsequent injury risk was also modelled by comparing the risk of injury following one of the common injuries and the risk following all other injuries. This quantified the difference in between-player subsequent injury risk. The number of days between injuries were also calculated for time to next injury.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Key findings<\/b><\/p>\n

    Our key findings for concussion were:<\/span><\/p>\n