Development of a trail running injury screening instrument

OBJECTIVE: To develop a trail running injury screening instrument (TRISI) for utilisation as clinical decision aid in determining if a trail runner is at an increased risk for injury.

DESIGN: Multiple methods approach.

METHODS: The study utilised five phases 1) identification of injury risk factors 2) determining the relevance of each identified risk factor in a trail running context, 3) creating the content of the Likert scale points from 0 to 4, 4) rescaling the Likert scale points to determine numerical values for the content of each Likert scale point, and 5) determining a weighted score for each injury risk factor that contributes to the overall combined composite score.

RESULTS: Of the 77 identified injury risk factors, 26 were deemed relevant in trail running. The weighted score for each injury risk factor ranged from 2.21 to 5.53 with the highest calculated score being 5.53. The final TRISI includes risk categories of training, running equipment, demographics, previous injury, behavioural, psychological, nutrition, chronic disease, physiological, and biomechanical factors.

CONCLUSION: The developed TRISI aims to assist the clinician during pre-race injury screening or during a training season to identify meaningful areas to target in designing injury risk management strategies and/or continuous health education.