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Original article
Differences in the occurrence and characteristics of injuries between full-time and part-time dancers
  1. Amy Jo Vassallo1,2,3,
  2. Evangelos Pappas1,
  3. Emmanuel Stamatakis2,3,
  4. Claire E Hiller1
  1. 1 Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
  2. 2 Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
  3. 3 Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
  1. Correspondence to Amy Jo Vassallo; avas0473{at}uni.sydney.edu.au

Abstract

Background Professional dancers are at significant risk of injury due to the physical demands of their career. Despite their high numbers, the experience of injury in freelance or part-time dancers is not well understood. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the occurrence and characteristics of injury in part-time compared with full-time Australian professional dancers.

Methods Data were collected using a cross-sectional survey distributed to employees of small and large dance companies and freelance dancers in Australia. Statistical comparisons between full-time and part-time dancer demographics, dance training, injury prevalence and characteristics were made using χ2, two-tailed Fisher’s exact tests, independent t-tests and Mann-Whitney U tests.

Results A total of 89 full-time and 57 part-time dancers were included for analysis. A higher proportion of full-time dancers (79.8%) than part-time dancers (63.2%) experienced an injury that impacted on their ability to dance in the past 12 months (p=0.035). Injuries characteristics were similar between groups with fatigue being the most cited contributing factor. Part-time dancers took longer to seek treatment while a higher proportion of full-time dancers were unable to dance in any capacity following their injury.

Conclusion More full-time dancers sustained an injury in the past 12 months, and were unable to dance in any capacity following their injury. However injuries still commonly occurred in part-time dancers without necessarily a large volume of dance activity. Part-time dancers often access general community clinicians for treatment, who may need additional education to practically advise on appropriate return to dance.

  • dance
  • injury
  • epidemiology

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjsem-2017-000324

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    Footnotes

    • Funding This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial or not for-profit sectors. However, AJV is supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program stipend. ES is funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council through a Senior Research Fellowship.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Contributors AJV designed the study, collected the data, analysed and interpreted the data, drafted the manuscript and approved the final article. EP and ES provided advice throughout the study design and data collection, critically revised the manuscript drafts and approved the final article. CH conceived the study, provided advice throughout the study design and data collection, critically revised the manuscript drafts and approved the final article.

    • Patient consent Not required.

    • Ethics approval Ethics committee approval was granted from the University of Sydney Human Research Ethics Committee.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.