MONDAY, Jan. 8 (HealthDay News) -- Competitive surfing is relatively safe when compared with sports that have similar injury data. Most acute injuries include sprains and lacerations, with surfboard contact accounting for 28 percent and contact with the ocean floor resulting in 18 percent of injuries, researchers report in the January issue of the American Journal of Sports Medicine.
Andrew Nathanson, M.D., of Rhode Island Hospital's Injury Prevention Center in Providence, and colleagues conducted a prospective study of acute competitive surfing injuries between 1999 and 2005. Wave size, type of sea-floor, and number of surfing races were recorded, and the injury total was divided by the total number of athlete-exposures to determine injury rates and risk factors.
Of 116 documented injuries, 89 occurred during competition, with an injury rate of 5.7 per 1,000 athlete-exposures, or 13 per 1,000 hours of competitive surfing. The rate of significant injuries was 6.6 per 1,000 hours of competitive surfing. Injury risk was 2.4 times higher when surfing in waves overhead or bigger compared to smaller waves, and 2.6 times higher when surfing over rock or reef bottoms compared to sandy bottoms.
"Establishing an accurate injury rate for surfing is not just of academic interest, but has implications for the insurance industry, and for schools that may want to start a surfing team. Information regarding the injury rate and injury patterns for professional and amateur contests might help predict the needs of a medical support staff, and aid in the design of protective equipment," the authors conclude.
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