Abstract des Autors

A prospective study of acute injuries from sports and physical exercise was carried out in a total population of a municipality with 31,620 inhabitants. An Injury Surveillance System registers continuously all acute visits to the five clinics of the Public Health Care Service. The amount of sports and physical exercise practised in the population was investigated and incidence rates of injury in 17 sports are presented. Three sources were used for estimating the population at risk: 1) a mailed questionnaire to a random sample of the population in the age range of 15-59 years, 2) reports from the sports clubs of the region, and 3) information about the number of pupils and school physical education. Altogether 571 injuries occurred in 28 different sports. Sixty-five percent of the injured persons were males. The majority of the injuries were from team and contact sports. Soccer was the most popular sport and accounted for 42 of the injuries but the highest risks of injury were found in ice-hockey and handball, followed by soccer. As a group, inter-company players had the highest risk, especially in soccer. The lowest incidence rates were found in individual sports such as cross-country skiing, swimming, running and racket sports. (gekuerzt)