Do Female University Varsity Athletes Have a Greater Risk of Injury Within a Competitive Varsity Season?

Previous varsity sport injury research has analyzed how acute and chronic injury severity, type, and location differs between sport and sexes, with limited research in time to injury. Canadian university varsity sport injury research is especially sparse and mostly retrospective. Thus, we aimed to understand injury differences in male and female competitive university athletes competing in the same sport. Athletes who competed on the basketball, volleyball, soccer, ice hockey, football (male), rugby (female), and wrestling teams were eligible for the study. There were 182 male and 113 female athletes who provided informed consent to be prospectively followed over a season. Injury date, type, location, chronicity, and events missed due to injury were recorded on a weekly basis. Overall, the percentage of male (68.7%) and female (68.1%) athletes injured was not different. No overall sex differences (variables collapsed) were observed in injury chronicity, location, type, events lost, mean number of injuries, or time to injury. Within sport differences existed for mean number of injuries, injury location, type of injury, and events missed. Mean time to injury in female basketball (28 days) and volleyball athletes (14 days) was significantly shorter compared to male basketball (67 days) and volleyball (65 days). Time to a concussion was significantly shorter in females overall compared to males. These results indicate that Canadian female university age athletes are not inherently more susceptible to injury, but female athletes within certain sports may have increased injury risk which could shorten time to injury (basketball, volleyball) and increase the number of events missed due to injury (hockey).