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Semi-Professional Rugby League Players have Higher Concussion Risk than Professional or Amateur Participants: A Pooled Analysis

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Abstract

A combined estimate of injuries within a specific sport through pooled analysis provides more precise evidence and meaningful information about the sport, whilst controlling for between-study variation due to individual sub-cohort characteristics. The objective of this analysis was to review all published rugby league studies reporting injuries from match and training participation and report the pooled data estimates for rugby league concussion injury epidemiology. A systematic literature analysis of concussion in rugby league was performed on published studies from January 1990 to October 2015. Data were extracted and pooled from 25 studies that reported the number and incidence of concussions in rugby league match and training activities. Amateur rugby league players had the highest incidence of concussive injuries in match activities (19.1 per 1000 match hours) while semi-professional players had the highest incidence of concussive injuries in training activities (3.1 per 1000 training hours). This pooled analysis showed that, during match participation activities, amateur rugby league participants had a higher reported concussion injury rate than professional and semi-professional participants. Semi-professional participants had nearly a threefold greater concussion injury risk than amateur rugby league participants during match participation. They also had nearly a 600-fold greater concussion injury risk than professional rugby league participants during training participation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Sports Performance Research Institute New Zealand, School of Sport and Recreation, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand

    Doug King & Patria Hume

  2. School of Sport, Health and Applied Science, St Mary’s University, Twickenham, Middlesex, UK

    Conor Gissane

  3. Faculty of Human Performance, Australian College of Physical Education, Sydney Olympic Park, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Trevor Clark

  4. Emergency Department, Hutt Valley District Health Board, Private Bag 31-907, Lower Hutt, New Zealand

    Doug King

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  1. Doug King
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Correspondence to Doug King.

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Doug King, Patria Hume, Conor Gissane and Trevor Clark declare that they have no conflicts of interest relevant to the content of this review.

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King, D., Hume, P., Gissane, C. et al. Semi-Professional Rugby League Players have Higher Concussion Risk than Professional or Amateur Participants: A Pooled Analysis. Sports Med 47, 197–205 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-016-0576-z

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