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Objectives To investigate the association of maturity status with injury incidence in Middle-Eastern youth athletes. Design Prospective cohort study. Setting Four consecutive seasons (2010-2014), Aspire Academy, Qatar. Participants Male athletes (age range: 11-18 years) representing four disciplines enrolled and grouped into two categories: Individual sports and racquet sports. Outcome measures Injury data collected over four seasons. Athletes' anthropometric characteristics assessed to calculate age at peak height velocity. Predicted mature heights (PMHs) collected and categorised into four quartiles. Athletes had wrist and hand radiographs for assessment of skeletal age (SA). Early and late maturers with an SA of >1 year older or younger than their chronological age (CA). Results For the sample (n=67) across all groups, 43 (64%) athletes had one or more injuries: Total of 212 injuries, 4.9 injuries per athlete across study. Survival analysis of maturity status using SA found early maturing athletes had two-fold greater injury risk compared with late maturers (HR 2.04, 95% CI 1.15 to 3.61, p=0.015). PMH associated with injury risk (HR 1.05, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.08, p=0.006). Athletes in fourth quartile (≥184 cm) had up to two-fold injury risk (HR 2.41, 95% CI 1.42 to 4.08, p=0.001). Racquet and individual sports involved similar injury risk (HR 1.14, 95% CI 0.86 to 1.52, p=0.37). Conclusion SA early maturity and PMH gradient were significant predictors of injury in youths.

The present investigation was carried out to examine the incidence and pattern of injuries in adolescent multisport athletes from youth sports academy. Injury data were prospectively collected from 166 athletes during the seasons from 2009 to 2014. A total of 643 injuries were identified, 559 (87.0%) were time-loss injuries. The overall injury incidence was 5.5 (95% confidence interval CI: 5.1–6.0), the incidence of time-loss injuries was 4.8 (95% CI: 4.4–5.2), the incidence of growth conditions was 1.2 (95% CI: 1.0–1.4) and incidence of serious injuries was 0.6 (95% CI: 0.5–0.8) per 1000 h of exposure. The prevalence of overuse injuries was 50.3%. Growth conditions represented 20.0%. Most of the injuries (67.0%) involved the lower extremities, and both foot and ankle were the most predominant injured body parts (22.0%). Knee injuries were mostly from overuse (50 vs. 23, p =.02), whereas foot and ankle injuries resulted from an acute mechanism (94 vs. 31, p <.0001). Minor and moderate injuries accounted for 87.0%. Muscle, tendon and osteochondrosis injuries accounted for 52.0% of all injuries. Comparing groups, squash sport was having the highest injury incidence (8.5 injuries per athlete). Higher exposure was associated with greater overuse relative risk (RR = 1.03, 95% CI: 1.01–1.014, p <.001). In conclusion, the results of this study identified a high incidence of injuries in this youth sports population. Striking was the prevalence of overuse injuries of 50%, which suggests the need for injury prevention protocols for adolescent highly trained athletes.