Prevalence of Musculoskeletal Injuries among Dancing Undergraduates in the Faculty of Dancing and Drama, University of the Visual and Performing Arts, Colombo, Sri Lanka

Abstract

Dancing includes repetitive movements involving numerous joints in the body, which may cause musculoskeletal ailments. Physical health issues among dancers have not been studied in Sri Lanka. Therefore, this study is aimed at determining the prevalence of musculoskeletal injuries among undergraduate dancers and assessing its relationship with selected academic characteristics. This descriptive cross-sectional study included 15 males and 85 females from the Faculty of Dancing and Drama, University of Visual and Performing Arts, Sri Lanka. An interviewer-administered questionnaire was used to collect socio-demographic, academic and dancing characteristics and injury assessment. Height and weight were measured using standard protocols. The SPSS software (version 20) was used for data analysis. Mean age, height and weight of the study population were 26 (SD=2.13) years, 158.1 (SD=6.7) cm and 55.1 (SD=9.7) kg respectively. Prevalence of musculoskeletal injuries was 59% (n=59). Injury prevalence of males and females was 13.5% (n=8) and 86.5%(n=51) respectively. Knee was the mostly reported joint (n=26, 44.1%), followed by trunk (n=11, 18.6%) and ankle (n=6, 10.2%) injuries. Least affected areas were head, neck, upper arm and wrist (n=1, 1.7%). By using chi-square test it was found that academic year, dancing style, number of dancing types followed and hours of dancing per week were the factors(p<0.05) significantly associated with musculoskeletal injuries. Prevalence of musculoskeletal injuries among dancing undergraduates was high and knee joint was reported as the mostly affected joint. Musculoskeletal injuries were reported to increase with higher academic year, dancing hours per week and decreased with number of dancing types followed by the dancing undergraduates.