Background Few published studies describe the complete injury profile of recruits in the basic military training in China.

Aims/Objectives/Purpose To estimate the incidence rate of injuries among recruits in the basic military training (including training and non-training injuries) and to identify risk factors related to the occurrence of injuries.

Methods A total of 1389 recruits were selected at random using two-stage sampling at six army camps and were prospectively followed from December 2010 to February 2011. Injury information was collected by the physicians. Incidence rate ratio (IRR) was used to measure the impact of factors based on two-level Poisson regression.

Results/Outcomes In total, 130 injuries, 121 injured recruits were registered. The injury incidence rate was 9.4%, consisting of 20% non-training injuries. Injuries highly occurred at the fifth, sixth and ninth week. The most common injuries were sprain/strain/rub, accounting for 65.4% of all injuries. The majority of injury body was lower extremity, constituting 61.5% of all injuries. Fifty-three percent of training injuries occurred at physical training. Recruits from urban areas and who self-reported intolerable training intensity had high injury risk (IRR=1.51, 95% CI 1.02 to 2.22; IRR=2.32, 95% CI 1.46 to 3.70) compared to those from rural areas and who reported tolerable training intensity.

Significance/Contribution to the Field In addition to training injuries, non-training injuries also cannot be neglected for injury prevention among recruits in the basic military training in China. Attention should be paid to recruits from urban areas and who reported intolerable training intensity, so as to prevent injuries among recruits in China.