Epidemiology of school fractures: a 1-year experience in Greek facilitation classes

The purpose of this study was to record bone fractures that were sustained by student-athletes of the Greek Athletic Facilitation Classes (AFC) during a 1-year period. The researchers examined 7455 male and 4921 female student-athletes from September 2006 until May 2007. All fractures were recorded by the Physical Education Teachers of the AFC with the cooperation of orthopaedic doctors, were entered into SPSS and were analysed with the Chi Square non-parametric test. In one year, 129 fractures in total were recorded, and this figure accounted for 11.4% of all injuries sustained by student-athletes of the Greek AFC. Results showed that male student-athletes sustained more fractures than females (67.4% vs. 32.6%, p<0.001). The highest rate of fractures occurred in soccer and basketball, where male student-athletes sustained more fractures than females (78.3% vs. 21.8%, p<0.05). Most injuries occurred in male student-athletes who were residence of the urban region (78.4% vs. 21.6%, p<0.05). Results showed that most fractures occurred during the month of February (χ2=13.12, df=8, p<0.05). The training surfaces on which most fractures occurred was the parquet and the synthetic floor. Overall, fractures of the wrist; metacarpal bones-fingers, and medial-lateral malleollus were the most common injuries observed. Fractures did not require expensive, medical, diagnostic imaging examinations and the total rehabilitation cost in most cases did not exceed 100 Euros.