In the master's thesis, the incidence of injuries occurring during the Physical Education hours in elementary schools was researched, more precisely the anatomical site of injuries as well as the number of injuries. The goal of the thesis was to discover whether gender, age or a specific part of the PE training unit affect the frequency of injuries and whether there is a correlation between the participation in sports clubs or societies and leisure activities and an increased number of injuries as well as longer absences in comparison to these same occurrences during PE. Moreover, which sports pupils engaged in in elementary school, sports clubs/societies or in their leasure time that yielded the greatest number of injuries were also determined. The data was collected using a questionnaire on a sample of 631 pupils, 282 boys in 349 girls, attending the last three years of elementary school; eight Slovenian elementary schools in the Goriška, Gorenjska and Osrednjeslovenska regions were chosen for the research.
The findings show that the greatest number of injuries suffered during PE classes were mostly wounds, followed by muscle injuries and sprains; the knee, ankle in fingers were parts of the body that were injured the most frequently. The obtained data do not show statistically significant differences in the number of injuries suffered in PE classes in relation to gender or age, nor are there any statistically significant differences in the number of injuries in relation to different PE training units. Differences in the time of absence after injury experienced in PE classes and club/society attendance can be spotted, while there are no differences regarding sports as a free-time leasure activity.
Similarly, there are statistically significant differences in the number of injuries sustained in PE classes and those experienced in a sports club or society and the number of injuries sustained in PE compared to leisure activities. The highest number of injuries sustained in school was recorded in ball games; for boys in football, and for girls in volleyball. In the activities of the sports club or the society, the culprit for the highest number of injuries in boys were martial arts, and in girls, dance. In their spare time, boys suffered the most injuries during football and cycling, while girls experienced injuries due to running, rollerblading and roller skating.
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