Context: Shoulder and elbow problems are common among athletes in overhead sports, making 7 it essential to understand the characteristics of active athletes with arm trouble to improve and prevent upper extremity disorders. The Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic (KJOC) Score is widely used to evaluate upper extremity functionality in this population.

Objective: (1) To compare the KJOC score between athletes with and without arm trouble in various overhead sports; and (2) to clarify the relationship between subjective competitive levels and functional characteristics using correlation analysis of the KJOC score questions.

Design: Cross-sectional study

Setting: College athletes from baseball, basketball, swimming, tennis, and track and field 15 throwing teams completed the KJOC score questionnaire. Participants were categorized into two groups based on their responses regarding current functional status: (1) playing without arm trouble (asymptomatic group) and (2) playing with arm trouble (symptomatic group).

Participants: 401 college athletes from overhead sports.

Main Outcome Measure(s): The Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare the overall KJOC scores and the scores of individual questions between symptomatic and asymptomatic groups. Spearman's rank correlation analysis determined the relationships between Q10 (subjective competitive level) and Q1-9 (upper extremity functionality).

Results: The symptomatic group had significantly lower KJOC scores than the asymptomatic group across all sports (P < 0.001). Several individual question scores also differed significantly between groups, although the specific questions varied by sport. Correlation analysis revealed the association between Q10 and other functional scores with sport-specific variations.

Conclusions: These findings demonstrate that impaired upper extremity function and its relationship to competition levels in athletes with arm trouble vary across different sports disciplines.

KJOC score, upper extremity, function, sports
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Author notes

Funding The Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientist (for T. Ishigaki).

Declarations of interest: none