Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Jan 23;15(1):2889.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-86358-4.

Epidemiological characteristics of injury in 7-22-year-old badminton players by age and sex

Xiao Zhou  1   2 , Kazuhiro Imai  3 , Xiao-Xuan Liu  2   4 , Zhuo Chen  2 , Eiji Watanabe  5 , Hongtao Zeng  1
Affiliations

Epidemiological characteristics of injury in 7-22-year-old badminton players by age and sex

Xiao Zhou et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Badminton-related injury is thought to happen with increasing incidence among badminton players. Literature shown injury incidence across age is scarce. The objective was to investigate the epidemiological characteristics of badminton-related injuries among badminton players broken down by age and sex. This epidemiology study is a retrospective design in 7-22-year-old badminton players at a national competitive tournament with a questionnaire from 2018 to 2023. An injury was defined as somatic complaint with time loss and/or medical care. Badminton-related injuries were normalized to rate per 1000 training-hours calculated by Poisson distribution in the collected data according to age and gender. Among all the 711 badminton players, 60.3% (429 players) suffered from at least one badminton-related injury. Regardless of gender, the most frequently injured anatomical site was knee (male: 18.8%, female: 18.6%), followed by ankle (male: 13.4%, female: 13.4%) and lower back (male: 12.3%, female: 10.0%). In male badminton players, the shoulder (7.6%) ranked fourth as the plantar (6.7%) ranked fourth in female badminton players. The rate per 1000 training-hours of badminton-related injuries showed that male players peaked at age 15-16 years and female players peaked at age 17-18 years, with 3.24 injuries and 3.52 injuries per 1000 training-hours, respectively. In 7-22-year-old badminton players, knee, lower back, and shoulder injuries frequently occurred and were significantly associated with the incidence of badminton-related injuries. The peak incidence of badminton-related injuries was in 15-16-year-old male badminton players while the peak incidence was in 17-18-year-old female badminton players. These data have the potential to help target the most at-risk anatomical sites and the most at-risk badminton players precisely for injury prevention programs.

Keywords: Athletic injuries; Injury incidence; Racquet sports; Youth players.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Screening flow.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Injury incidence of anatomical sites in badminton players.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Injury rate per 1000 training hours in badminton players.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Injury rate per 1000 training hours of anatomical sites in badminton players.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Nippon Badminton Association: Changes Of Members. https://www.badminton.or.jp/regist/docs/toroku_20240416.pdf
    1. Miyake, E. et al. A prospective epidemiological study of injuries in Japanese national tournament-level badminton players from junior high school to university. Asian J. Sports Med.7, 1 (2016). - PMC - PubMed
    1. Nhan, D. T., Klyce, W. & Lee, R. J. Epidemiological patterns of alternative racquet-sport injuries in the United States, 1997–2016. Orthop. J. Sports Med.6, 2325967118786237 (2018). - PMC - PubMed
    1. Jørgensen, U. & Winge, S. Epidemiology of badminton injuries. Int. J. Sports Med.8, 379–382 (1987). - PubMed
    1. Hensley, L. D. & Paup, D. C. A survey of badminton injuries. Br. J. Sports Med.13, 156–160 (1979). - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources