Swimmers shoulder among university students, prevalence and risk factors: A cross sectional study

Abstract

The main symptom of swimmer's shoulder is pain in the shoulder area during or after swimming. Clarifying the differences between swimmers with and without shoulder pain could serve as a basis for developing a program to prevent shoulder injury that may lead to pain and dysfunction.Purpose: To find out the risk factors for swimmer's shoulder syndrome among passing students, and the relationship between shoulder pain and swimmers.Methodology: Cross sectional/observational study, between student swimmers at An-Najah National University, the sample size was 61. Then we distributed questionnaires (swimmers shoulder questionnaire and pain assessment), and data will be collected and analysed using individual ratio and logistic regression. Between July 2023 and August 2023.Result: The number of participants with shoulder pain was 31 and 30 had no shoulder pain. It was found that 50.8% of the participants had shoulder pain associated with swimming. More than half of the participants (54.8%) reported that the intensity of the pain was moderate for them. 32.9% indicate that there is a moderate positive relationship between the number of weekly training sessions and the probability of swimmer’s shoulder experience, and 46.7% indicate that there is a stronger positive relationship between the number of meters swam per session and the risk of swimmers shoulder. 31.1% of the participants indicated that the university swim team set aside time for shoulder strengthening exercises during the workout and 68.9% of swimmers who do not participate in shoulder stretches before swimming are more likely to develop swimmer's shoulder compared to those who practice shoulder stretches.Conclusion: This study showed that students who swimming at An-Najah University have risk factors for developing swimmer's shoulder syndrome. So the effected students should have more knowledge about swimmer's shoulder syndrome, the rest of students should know how to prevent themselves from the syndrome.