An assessment of medical care provided by Nevada's high school athletic programs

Even with preventative measures, injuries are inherent in sports. Almquist (2001) indicated that almost 60 percent of athletic injuries occur during practices. The American Medical Association recommends that all high schools establish an athletic medical team, but the National Athletic Trainers' Association (NATA) has estimated that only 42% of all high schools in the United States have access to a certified athletic trainer. In 2002, a NATA inter-association task force created the Appropriate Medical Care for Secondary School-Aged Athletes (AMCSSAA) Consensus Statement, which outlined the minimum standards for health care for adolescent athletes.;The purpose of this study was to assess the athletic medical care provided by Nevada's high schools in relation to the recommendations set forth by the AMCSSAA Consensus Statement. A modified version of the Appropriate Medical Care Assessment Tool (AMCAT) was used to achieve this purpose. The tool was validated by a panel of experts using Cronbach's alpha. Seven dependent variables and ten independent variables (factors associated with higher quality of care) were subsequently identified. The tool was sent via email to the athletic administrators of the member schools in the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association (n = 107). The association between the independent variables and the dependent variables was examined via a series of MANOVAs (alpha = 0.05). In the cases of significant MANOVAs, follow-up ANOVAs with a Bonferroni adjustment were used to determine which recommendations were related to each independent variable.;There was a 50% (n = 54) return on the AMCAT with 76% (n = 41) of the respondents being 4A (large) high schools. Fifty-seven percent of the respondents were from large metropolitan areas of the state. The respondent schools had mean recommendation scores between 0.61--0.92, indicating that the respondent schools were moderately or highly likely to meet the AMCSSAA recommendations. A significant multivariate effect was found for presence, employment, and number of certified athletic trainers; school size and setting; distance from the nearest medical facility; and budget for supplies (p < .0001). The results of this study indicated that a majority of the high school athletic programs that participated in the study adequately met the AMCSSAA recommendations.