- Title
- The role of sport injury and injury risk perceptions on children's continued participation in organised sport
- Creator
- Siesmaa, Emma; Finch, Caroline; Blitvich, Jennifer; Telford, Amanda
- Date
- 2009
- Type
- Text; Conference paper
- Identifier
- http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/45905
- Identifier
- vital:3573
- Identifier
-
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsams.2009.10.042
- Abstract
- Introduction: Child sport participation, both in Australia and internationally, has increased during the past decade and the health benefits associated with child sport participation are now well established. Some evidence suggests that sport participation contributes importantly to children's overall levels of physical activity, thus helping to reduce the risk of childhood obesity and associated childhood diseases. Although the benefits of sport participation are known, sport injury among children has become an international public health concern and it remains unclear how sport injury impacts children's long-term sport involvement. This research aimed to undertake a qualitative investigation of the impact of sport injury experiences and injury risk perceptions on children's on-going sport participation. Methods: Focus group discussions, each with 6–10 children who were involved in an organised (after school) sport, were conducted until saturation of themes was obtained. Children were recruited from sports including badminton, soccer, golf, swimming, dance, netball and cricket and participated at a community or sub-elite level. Each focus group session was approximately 30 min in duration. Questions focussed on children's sport participation, reasons for their continuation or discontinuation of sport involvement, the encouragement or discouragement they received from parents, any injuries they had sustained while participating and whether sport injury discouraged children or their parents from child sport participation in the future. The qualitative research software NVivo was used to analyse the discussions. Results/conclusion: Few children were concerned about the risk of sport injury while participating in sport. However, many children discussed not wanting to play sports such as football, rugby or boxing, perceiving these sports as too rough, and with increased chance of injury. The main reasons children reported for discontinuation of sport involvement were lack of enjoyment and restrictions of their time. Children reported parents to be supportive of their sport behaviours regardless of safety concerns. No instances of parents preventing child sport involvement were reported by children. This study forms part of a larger study, to determine the influence of child and parent injury perceptions on sport choice and participation. Findings will inform sporting bodies of sport injury and safety concerns held by children and their parents, highlighting areas that can be targeted in order to retain child participants.
- Publisher
- Brisbane, Queensland :
- Relation
- Paper presented at 2009 Australia Conference of Science and Medicine in Sport, Seventh National Physical Activity Conference, Sixth National Sports Injury Prevention Conference, Be Active '09, Brisbane, Queensland : 14th-17th October 2009
- Rights
- This metadata is freely available under a CCO license
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