The ‘Sequence of Prevention’ for musculoskeletal injuries among recreational basketballers: a systematic review of the scientific literature

Objective: Currently, there is no overview of the incidence and (basketball-specific) risk factors of musculoskeletal injuries among recreational basketball players, nor any insight into the effect of preventive measures on the incidence of basketball injuries. This study aimed to gather systematically the scientific evidence on the incidence, prevalence, aetiology and preventive measures for musculoskeletal injuries among recreational basketball players. Methods: Highly sensitive search strategies were built based on three groups of keywords (and related search terms). Two electronic databases were searched, namely Medline (biomedical literature) via Pubmed, and SPORTDiscus (sports and sports medicine literature) via EBSCOhost. Results: The incidence of musculoskeletal injuries among recreational basketball players ranged from 0.0047 injuries per 1,000 athlete-exposures (AE) for dental injuries to 10.1 injuries per 1000 AE for overall injuries during match play. Significant risk factors for injuries were defending, postural sway, high vertical ground reaction force during jumping and weight >75 kg. All prevention studies have shown to have a significant effect on reducing the risk of injury ranging from an odds ratio (95% confidence interval (CI)) of 0.175 (0.049–0.626) for training injuries and a relative risk (95% CI) of 0.83 (0.57–1.19) achieved with FIFA 11+ prevention exercises and sport-specific balance training, relatively. Conclusion: In order to gain insight in the aetiology of basketball-specific injuries and consequently facilitate the development of preventive strategies, more high quality basketball-specific and injury-specific studies among recreational basketball players are needed.