Background Patellar tendinopathy is a clinically identified overload injury associated to jumping activities. The symptoms may last for years, affect sports participation and even lead to the end of a sport career. Therefore, is necessary to understand the profile of injury/complain in a sports team in order to plan preventive strategies.

Objective The purpose of this study was to identify the prevalence of patellar tendon pain history in Brazilian volleyball and basketball athletes.

Design Cross-sectional.

Setting Sports Science Laboratory in the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais.

Patients (or Participants) One-hundred and ninety and one volleyball and basketball athletes with a mean age of 18.29 (+4.9) years, body mass of 76.50 (+13.8) kilograms and height of 1.85 (0,11) meters participated in this study.

Interventions (or Assessment of Risk Factors) The athletes were questioned by the examiner about patellar tendon pain history related to sports practice. If the athlete had history of other knee complains (as patellofemoral pain and bursitis) and/or Osgood-Schlatter, he/she was excluded.

Main Outcome Measurements History of pain, in the last 6 months, localized at the patellar tendon, which compromised the sports participation and/or sports performance.

Results The prevalence of patellar tendon pain history was 22.5% (n=43) in the athletes participating in this study. Fifteen were female and 28 male, 25 were juvenile and 18 adult and 34 practiced volleyball and 9 basketball. Ten athletes reported patellar tendon pain in left lower limb, 14 in right lower limb and 19 bilaterally. Therefore, 147 athletes did not had patellar tendon pain history in the last 6 months.

Conclusions The prevalence of patellar tendon pain history in this study was 22.5%. The major occurrence was bilateral pain history and the results suggest that male volleyball athletes had higher prevalence.