Prevalence of musculoskeletal injuries in brazilian professional soccer athletes

Objective: To determine the prevalence and characteristics of musculoskeletal injuries in the male soccer athletes from a Brazilian northeast professional team, Esporte Clube Bahia, during the 2017 season. Methods: A retrospective analysis of the occurrence of sports injuries was carried out through a survey of the medical records. The athletes were separated into two groups: those who did not suffer injuries and those who did. The epidemiological data, minutes played and number of matches were described by measures of central tendency such as mean, mode and median, and their dispersion measures, by standard deviation. The number, type and degree of injuries, the anatomical location, moment of occurrence, laterality and position in which the athlete played were described by absolute and relative frequency. Results: Data were collected from 29 athletes who played for the club in 2017, with an overall mean age of 26.67. It was observed that the difference between means of age is significantly different between the groups of athletes who suffered injury and those who did not (P=0.0002). The age group with the highest number of injuries was from 26 to 33 year old. The average number of matches of the athletes who suffered injuries was on average 3.12 higher (P=0.0122) than those who did not, as well as the athletes who suffered injuries played on average 1184.8 minutes more than those who did not suffer injuries (P=0.0120). The most prevalent injury was muscle strain, with 27.59% (n=8), followed by sprain and myalgia, both with 13.79% (n=4), contusion and rupture, corresponding to 10.34% (n=3). Conclusion: The study looked at the high frequency of musculoskeletal injuries in current soccer, especially strain, myalgia and sprain. The high prevalence of injuries during training and, especially, during the second half of the official matches are also noteworthy.