Umbrella review of musculoskeletal injury burden in dancers: implication for practice and research.

BACKGROUND: Dancers are susceptible to injury. Nevertheless, injury epidemiology research in dancers is inconsistent. Furthermore, ballet dancing has dominated the huge body of reviews analysing the epidemiology of musculoskeletal injuries in a variety of artistic dance forms, making it challenging to acquire a thorough, comprehensive, and understandable reporting of the available data.

PURPOSE: The overview and reanalysis of dancers' musculoskeletal pain and injury load across artistic dance forms.

STUDY DESIGN: Systematic review of systematic reviews and meta-analysis.

METHODS: A search was conducted online for literature written in English using PubMed and Google Scholar (2012-2021). The data gathered was then analysed using predetermined qualifying criteria.

RESULTS: 12 reviews were determined to be qualified, the majority of which had moderate to low confidence and raised concerns about bias based on JBI-URARI and ROBIS. The prevalence of dance-related musculoskeletal injuries ranged from 26% to 84% in any artistic dancers and 42% to 343% in ballet dancers. The incidence was less than 5 per 1000 dance hours in both groups, with lower extremities and back being the commonly reported sites. Reviews themselves stated that the quality of the reviews was often poor. Due to the study's heterogeneity and methodological inconsistency, data pooling and meta-analysis were not possible.

CONCLUSION: The current review emphasises the gaps and restrictions in the dance epidemiology literature that make it challenging to quantify and report a single overall injury rate for dancers. These results underline the need for better primary investigations and evidence synthesis. As injury epidemiology is a critical component of the overall injury-prevention puzzle, there is a need for standardisation in future research, particularly with active and prospective injury surveillance, injury classification, injury evaluation, and injury reporting.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Systematic Review, Level III.