Hamstring muscle strain injury events in intercollegiate and interscholastic soccer

Hamstring strains are a common injury among soccer athletes, and they also have a high prevalence of recurrence. The purposes of this dissertation were to describe the injury event factors and the number of days to return to play following a hamstring strain in intercollegiate soccer and to describe injury event factors of thigh muscle strains in interscholastic soccer players.;Hamstring strain event data were collected from the NCAA Injury Surveillance System (ISS) for men's and women's soccer. Males had higher incidence rates of hamstring strains and a significantly larger proportion of recurrent hamstring strains. There were no differences in the hamstring strain distribution within the injury event factors between sexes or recurrence status.;Hamstring strain event data and the time to return to play were collected from the ISS. There were no significant differences between sexes in the number of days to return to play. Regarding first-time hamstring strains, males had more days lost when strains occurred during games, the inseason, among forwards and division! players. There were no significant factors for females. Regarding recurrent hamstring strains, males had more days lost when the injury occurred during the inseason and females return to play time was longer if the player was a forward.;Thigh muscle strain event data for interscholastic soccer players were collected from the High School Sports-Related Injury Surveillance System, RIO(TM). There were no differences in the incidence rate of thigh muscle strains between the sexes except females were higher during games. There were no differences between the sexes in the thigh muscle strain event factors. The only event factor that was significantly different between first-time and recurrent strains was the field location during games.;The results indicate that differences in the incidence rates do exist between sexes for hamstring strains among intercollegiate soccer players and for thigh muscle strains among interscholastic soccer players. However, the findings are dissimilar and may be influenced by population differences or the inclusion of all thigh muscle strains among interscholastic players. Differences of injury event factors between sexes may influence the time to return to play among intercollegiate soccer players with hamstring strains.