Participation Habits and Occurrence of Physical Complaints in a Sample of Portuguese Female Artistic Roller Skaters

Abstract

Educators and health professionals need to gain knowledge of the special needs of artistic roller skaters if they seek effective training and preventing physical complaints or injuries. In the absence of epidemiological studies on artistic roller skaters, it is useful to characterize the participants, their participation habits, and the occurrence of physical complaints or injuries. A web-based survey was designed to collect epidemiological information on female artistic roller skaters. The self-report questionnaire included information about the participant, her participation habits, injury history, and physical complaints in the past 12 months. A total of 143 female artistic roller skaters were included in the study. Sixty-seven [46.9%] of the participants had 175 physical complaints in the past 12 months, for an average of 2.61 complaints per skater. The physical complaints mainly affected the lower limbs (53.1%), followed by the trunk (24.0%) and upper limbs (22.9%). The most affected sites were the knee (16.6%), back (10.9%) and wrist (10.3%). Our results suggest that physical complaints are common in artistic roller skating. Multiple episodes were common. Several factors were associated with physical complaints, including the number of coaches, frequency of boots, number of training hours per week, number of training hours before competition, and previous injuries.