An intercollegiate comparison of prevalence of injuries among students during technique class from five chiropractic colleges throughout the world: a preliminary retrospective study.

The purpose of this study was to compare the characteristics of injuries sustained by chiropractic students during their undergraduate training at different chiropractic colleges. Teaching instructors from English-speaking chiropractic colleges in the United States, Europe, Africa and Australia/New Zealand were electronically requested to administer a retrospective study that sought to characterize injuries students experienced during their technique labs. Four colleges responded to the investigators' request, returning a total of 405 questionnaires. Colleges were only identified by a letter and country/continent of origin. The number of responses from these four colleges was: College A (Africa) n=67; College B (United States) n=81; College C (Europe) n=143) and; College D (Australia/New Zealand) n=110. The percentage of students reportedly injured at each college was: College A (7%); College B (53%); College C (18%) and; College D (22%). These numbers were compared to previously gathered data from CMCC that reported a rate of student injury of 56% (n=292). There were no statistically significant differences between injured and non-injured groups of students with respect to age, body weight, height or sex. Additional gathered data that further characterizes these injuries among students from these four chiropractic colleges is currently under review.