RISK FACTORSOF KNEE PAIN; PREVALENCE IN ATHLETES

Abstract

This study was conducted in capital city of Pakistan, Islamabad.In this survey 300 athletes, 233 male and 67 femaleparticipating in various sporting events at various levels were tested to find out the prevalence of knee pain and the associated risk factors in different games.Findings of the research have shown that 42% (300) of the athletes reported knee pain, which is a very high frequency among the athletes,whereas 58% (172) of the athletes were reported to have no knee pain. Many contributing factors identified were obesity, improper warm-up, improper coaching, poor training, improper shoes, poor technique, bone weakness, improper cooldown, maximum participation level and injury. Total 27 games were made part of study, where the highest percentage of knee pain was reported in athletics, which was 13.0% and lowest was in Tennis 0.7%. The highest risk factors, which included improper shoes and poor technique was 23.4% whereas poor training was 14.1%.It is suggested that further studies may be conducted on the problem to find out different knee injuries i.e. Ligamentous injuries, Tendinitis injuries, muscular injuries which may cause knee injury or pain in athletes.