Correlation Between Sleep Complaints and History of Musculoskeletal Injuries in Adolescent Track and Field Athletes

Abstract

Purpose

(i) To investigate the correlation between sleep complaints and history of musculoskeletal injuries in adolescent track athletes; (ii) to characterize the prevalence of sleep complaints; and (iii) to investigate the correlation between sleep complaints and age.

Methods

This was a cross-sectional study with 19 male and 11 female adolescent track athletes (mean age 16.5 years). The participants answered the sleep complaints questionnaire and retrospective musculoskeletal injuries data were collected by the physical therapy department, considering the previous 6 months. Spearman’s correlation coefficient was used to verify the correlation between variables. The significance level was set at 0.05.

Results

Correlations between sleep complaints and history of injuries were found for the following variables: frequency of insufficient sleep and previous re-injuries (r _s = 0.687, P = 0.028), somnambulism and severity of previous injuries (r _s = 0.577, P = 0.006), frequency of somnambulism and previous injuries (r _s = 1.000, P = 0.010), frequency of kicking legs and previous injuries (r _s = 0.736, P = 0.010), frequency of breathing complaints and previous re-injuries (r _s = 0.889, P = 0.044). The most prevalent sleep complaint was moving a lot during sleep (60%). The mean total sleep time was 7 h and 37 min. Age positively correlated with frequency of insufficient sleep (r _s = 0.555, P = 0.032), frequency of somnambulism (r _s = 1.000, P = 0.010), and negatively with breathing complaints (r _s = − 0.382, P = 0.037).

Conclusion

Some complaints may be associated with a history of occurrence, re-occurrence, and severity of injuries in adolescent athletes and they tend to sleep less than the recommended total sleep time. Longitudinal studies should be carried out to confirm whether these sleep complaints are risk factors for sports injuries.