Stress fractures of the tibia: can personality traits help us detect the injury-prone athlete?

Stress fractures of the tibia: can personality traits help us detect the injury-prone athlete?

One of the few serious drawbacks associated with running
is overuse injuries such as stress fractures of the tibia,
which cause local pain and swelling, often resulting in a
temporary cessation of training. Whereas some runners
rarely become injured, others experience recurrent injuries
even during fairly short periods of time. The aim of the
present study was to compare selected personality traits in
a group of runners who had sustained a previous tibial
stress fracture (n½17), with a matched group of runners
(n½17) who had never experienced stress fractures. The
results indicated that the injured runners, especially the
women, scored higher than the non-injured runners did on
inventories measuring both the Type A behavior pattern
and exercise dependency. Since motivation, ambitiousness, and competitiveness are integral parts of these inventories, high scoring individuals might be part of a high-risk population for running injuries, the more so if the individual also feels dependent on regular running for managing stress related mood states, which was the case particularly for the injured women in the present study. However, the somewhat limited number of runners who had had a confirmatory scintigram, which was a criterion for inclusion in the study, warrants a cautious interpretation of the results. The findings nevertheless suggest that in order to prevent recurrent injuries, health education professionals and clinicians ought to focus on conveying the importance of detecting precursors of injury, and the subsequent steps which should be taken to avoid developing a serious injury.

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