Sports Injury Risks and Opportunity Costs: The Conspicuous Landscape of Handball among Tertiary Teachers’ Colleges in Zimbabwe

Abstract

This study explored injury risks associated with sport participation among handball players in Zimbabwean Tertiary Institutions between 2016 and 2019. The study employed a descriptive, prospective cohort design anchored on quantitative methodology and informed by Positivism Philosophy. The population comprised technocrats (coaches, fitness trainers, physiotherapists, psychologists and players) from selected Zimbabwe Teachers’ Colleges Sports Association handball teams. Stratified random sampling was used to select the respondents. Questionnaire was used as data collection tool and IBM SPSS Statistic Version 23 was used for data analysis. Findings revealed critical knowledge-service gaps on sports medicine professionals regarding lack of players’ informational sources on pre-participation medical health-checks as evidence-based practices for addressing activity limitations and risks upon return-to-sport. Ego-oriented administration characteristic of pain-injury paradox environment prevailed with pre-mature ending of players’ rehabilitation routes. Well formulated guideline-inclined preventive injury risk management protocols resonating player-centered medicine approaches that could effectively abate epidemiologic opportunity injury risks and costs were non-existent. Furthermore, regularized in-service professional development clinics lacked. Players’ objective injury records, profiles and pre-participation medical examination health-checks should be considered as critical informational sources for fully resolving physiological defects prior to return-to competitive contexts. Formulation of guideline-inclined preventive injury risk management protocols entrenching player-centered medicine practices could effectively trim down epidemiologic opportunity injury risks and costs and improve the critical base for players’ odds of participation. Regularized inservice professional development trainings for sports medicine professionals through symposiums should inexorably be an esteemed epitomic pedestal delved towards improving their expert base levels in view of contemporary preventive and injury risk management dynamics in sports.