The physical activities performed by dancers predispose to numerous injuries. The search for information about this modality of lesion allowed the authors to verify the lack of investigation on the issue. Thus, the purpose of this investigation was to point out the main dance injuries, trying to describe their distribution and characterization in their context, and to suggest preventive measures to the most frequent injuries. 122 female dancers were included in the study, aged between 8 and 30 years, from dance academies in the City of Bauru, State of São Paulo. Most of them were professional dancers (42%) or students (45%) with 3 to 11 years of practice (73%), classical ballet students (84%) and jazz (66%), and performed 4 to 8 weekly classes (70%), each class lasting 60 to 120 minutes (89%). Data were recorded using referred morbidity inquiry to obtain information on the injuries that had occurred in the previous year. Descriptive statistics was used to present the findings, showing absolute and corrected frequencies, and the rate of injuries. In analytic terms, the authors used Wilcoxon, Spearman and Kruskal-Wallis tests, for p < 0.05. Results showed 53.27% with frequency of 1 to 6 acute injuries. They increase with age, concentrate on tegumental tissue (79.64%), and are related to variables such as age of beginning dancing and the use of point shoes. 97.48% are injuries in the lower limbs, mostly feet corns (47%) and blisters (28.56%). Classical ballet was responsible for most of the injuries. They were more frequent on dancers and students, and the use of point shoes resulted in elevated risk of feet injuries.
Dance; Injuries; Referred morbidity inquiry
