Injuries at the National Sport Festival Taekwondo Championship in Sri Lanka

BACKGROUND: Taekwondo is a Korean martial art that had been growing in popularity in Sri Lanka and internationally. Although studies have examined injuries in other non-contact sports, to date, no published medical study has examined injuries in taekwondo competitions in Sri Lanka. The purpose of this study was to identify the injury profile in the "National Sport Festival Taekwondo Championship" in Sri Lanka. METHODS: This is a descriptive cross-sectional study. In the competition, 193 athletes were observed prospectively to detect the injury type, site of injury, severity of injury and the rate of injury. Injury data were recorded using an interviewer administered questionnaire with the help of the attending physician. The software program "SPSS 16.0' was used to analyze the data. RESULTS: Importantly, 78 injuries were recorded. The most prevalent injury type was contusions (67.9%) followed by lacerations (12.8%), sprain (5.1%), concussion (5.1%) and fractures (3.8%). The lower limbs were determined as the most prevalent anatomical region of the body to sustain an injury during a competition followed by the head and neck. The most frequent injuries were mild injures (71.8%) which is followed by moderate injuries (17.9%) and the equal frequency of 5.1% for both severe and critical injuries. The injury rate was found to be 220.3 injuries per 1000 athlete-exposures. CONCLUSIONS: The most common injury location and type were found to be the lower limb and contusion, respectively. The majority of injuries appeared to be of mild in nature. Most importantly, the injury rate in Sri Lankan taekwondo athletes is very much higher than the rates reported from the other parts in the world. There is an urgent need of launching programs related to injury prevention among the players and the referees in order to decrease the rate of taekwondo injuries in Sri Lanka.