IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v14y2017i6p599-d100589.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Trends in Pediatric and Adolescent Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injuries in Victoria, Australia 2005–2015

Author

Listed:
  • Louise Shaw

    (Australian Collaboration for Research into Injury in Sport and its Prevention, Federation University Australia, Ballarat 3353, Victoria, Australia)

  • Caroline F. Finch

    (Australian Collaboration for Research into Injury in Sport and its Prevention, Federation University Australia, Ballarat 3353, Victoria, Australia)

Abstract

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries in children and adolescents have been the focus of recent media attention and parental concern, given their potential for adverse long-term health outcomes and healthcare costs. However, there is limited formal evidence on trends in the incidence of ACL injuries in children. This study utilizes the Victorian Admitted Episodes Dataset (VAED) to characterize epidemiologic trends of hospital-admitted ACL injuries in those aged 5 to 14 years over a period of 10 years from 2005 to 2015. There was a total of 320 cases and the overall annual rate of ACL injuries increased by 147.8% from 2.74 per 100,000 population in 2005/2006 to 6.79 per 100,000 in 2014/2015. The majority (96.9%) of these injuries were in 10- to 14-year-olds. The main in-hospital procedure provided to over 80% of the hospitalized cases involved ACL reconstruction. Sporting activities accounted for 56.6% of ACL injuries. For females, over half (52.4%) of ACL injuries occurred whilst playing ball sports, compared to 35.4% of males. The large increase in ACL injuries in 5- to 14-year-olds in the state of Victoria, Australia over a 10-year period indicates they are a significant and emerging health burden. Population-wide ACL prevention policies are required to halt these trends. Cost effective prevention programs that involve neuromuscular training must be implemented in schools and junior sports teams.

Suggested Citation

  • Louise Shaw & Caroline F. Finch, 2017. "Trends in Pediatric and Adolescent Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injuries in Victoria, Australia 2005–2015," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-10, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:14:y:2017:i:6:p:599-:d:100589
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/14/6/599/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/14/6/599/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:14:y:2017:i:6:p:599-:d:100589. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.