FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO INJURIES AMONG HANDBALL PLAYERS
IN TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS: A CASE STUDY OF MASVINGO PROVINCE,
ZIMBABWE.

FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO INJURIES AMONG HANDBALL PLAYERS
IN TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS: A CASE STUDY OF MASVINGO PROVINCE,
ZIMBABWE.

CHIMONERO PRINCE

Sport injury has become an inescapable occupational menace in physical and sporting circles
due to the current high entry of people into sport for competition and entertainment reasons.
This inclination has seen a shift of interest from therapeutic process towards more of injury
protective mechanisms with regard to players’ physical uprightness. This study aimed at
identifying the main risk factors that contributed to injury occurrence during training and
competition in Masvingo Province tertiary handball between 2014 and 2015. It sought to
determine and examine the relationships between external and athlete-triggered risk factors,
injury outcomes and their impact on player performance. This study was an epidemiological
prospective cohort design with 153 college players, 18-30 years drawn from ten male and
female handball teams of Masvingo Province. It was conducted with the view to recommend
plausible preventive safe playing environments from the existing high cumulative injury
incidences players experienced. A total of 242 incidental injuries players sustained were from
contact and non-contact situations. Contact injuries were greater in matches than training in
both gender but with high figures being reported in females than men. Most injuries were
located in lower limb than upper limb appendages. The most vulnerable sites were the knee,
ankle/foot, shoulder, wrist, fingers, elbow and hip. The principal injury mechanisms that
significantly contributed to injury sustenance were plant and cutting, shooting, blocking,
turning, landing and dribbling. Findings were that injury occurrence is related to the interface
between externally and athlete-related risk factors implying that injury occurrence is not
confined to a single inciting factor, but to a host of variables. Handball training regimes need
to focus on basic proprioceptive, sensomotoric, and neuromuscular aspects to address the
frequently injured body limps. Exercise-based injury prevention programs, education on
injury aetiology, identification of injury trends and situational risk factors, should be
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practically instituted and ingrained as correctional concerns by coaches and associations in
handball.

2016