UKC

Climbing injuries research project online survey.

New Topic
This topic has been archived, and won't accept reply postings.
Cara Woodards 24 Sep 2015

*Posted with permission of UKClimbing*

Hello,

In case anyone missed the previous post i thought i would try again to increase participation for my research. I am looking for participants such as yourselves to spare just 10-15 minutes of your time by filling in an online survey please.

I am student at Leeds Beckett University studying a Masters degree in Physiotherapy. As part of my degree I need to complete a dissertation research project. I am an avid climber and have decided to focus my research around climbing.

What is the research?
The research aims to investigate the affects climbing potentially has on the formation of “nodules” (thickening of tissue in one small area on the palm) as well as the prevalence of Dupuytren’s contracture in climbers.
Dupuytren’s contracture is a condition that affects the hands and fingers. It causes one or more fingers to bend into the palm of the hand. Not only can Dupuytren’s contracture lead to a significant reduction in climbing ability but also functional ability of daily activities. Little is known about what predisposes climbers to develop these and their association with styles of climbing, exposure to climbing and previous climbing injuries. Therefore, this research will help increase knowledge and improve physiotherapy practice.

Why take part?
Your assistance in completing this survey will help us understand the factors that lead to this condition and subsequent treatment for fellow climbers.

How to take part?
Please visit https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/dupuytrenscontractureresearch
There would be no follow up questions and you would not need to take part in any other way.

Thank you ever so much for your time and helping me conduct this interesting research in climbing.

Please feel free to contact me via email with any further questions.
c.woodards6442@student.leedsbeckett.ac.uk

Kind Regards,

Cara Woodards
Post edited at 09:07
 jsmcfarland 24 Sep 2015
In reply to Cara Woodards:

Filling out the survey now, just thought I would point out it's quite odd that for a question on injuries caused by falls to focus on the upper body, most injuries would be in the lower body, eg feet, ankles knees etc I would have thought
In reply to Cara Woodards:

Have completed it for you.

Can you explain something though? How does your survey establish any causal link between climbing in Dupuytren's? I'm not being an arse! I just don't see how your survey will do this!
 kylo-342 25 Sep 2015
In reply to nickinscottishmountains:

Survey can't establish a causal link -- that would be very difficult to acheive.

It might show an association between climbing and dupuytrens which would be interesting information.

But even showing an association between the two doesn't infer causality. For example people with X gene might be more likely to develop dupuytrens, and X gene might also be associated with liking climbing more. But its the X gene that causes dupuytrens, not the climbing.
In reply to kylo-342:
Hi...thanks...yes that was exactly what I thought (and I get all the stuff about associations/cause etc), but the phrasing in the OP hints at the effects of climbing on nodules, but it cannot demonstrate effects, only associations.
Post edited at 13:59
 Arty 25 Sep 2015
In reply to Cara Woodards:

Hi Cara, i completed your survey the first time and am glad you have put a new link in as if you know anyone else looking for a subject it seems that sculpters suffer from trigger finger. My yoga teacher/ scultor does and so does her colleague. It seems to her that the only resolution is surgery. Just seemed like an opportunity of research.

Richard
 kylo-342 25 Sep 2015
In reply to nickinscottishmountains:
In my opinion, such a survey is a very useful start to finding out about the prevalance of Dupuytren's in climbers, and will inform more definitive studies in the future.

However, one challenge of such a survey is that although a numerator will be easy to get (i.e. the number of people affected with dupuytrens who have responded) , a denominator (i.e. number of total climbers who have chosen not to reply to the survey) will be harder to determine. So getting an estimate of population based prevalence will be tricky, although might be estimated by number of views of the thread perhaps.

However, if the investigator gets lots of responses from people with Dupuytrens, then it might suggest that further work is at least feasible. So a good project for an MSc which may lead to benefits for climbers in the future.
Post edited at 15:25
In reply to kylo-342:

Just to be clear, I think it is a well worded and great survey, I just wanted to get a better feel for what sort of analysis will be applied.
Cara Woodards 25 Sep 2015
In reply to jsmcfarland:

Hello,

Thanks very much for filling in the survey. Yes that is a good point to take into consideration thanks very much for your feedback. I will look into it for any further research.

Cara Woodards 25 Sep 2015
In reply to timmsy:

Hello,

Thank you. I just replied via email. Thanks.
Cara Woodards 25 Sep 2015
In reply to kylo-342:

Hello,

Yes correct it will be tricky to get a denominator unfortunately due to the unknown population of climbers who have not replied, as you mentioned. Therefore I may have to focus more on associations with Dupuytren's and the various styles of climbing, exposure to climbing and previous climbing injuries. Then in the future hopefully be able to look at more population based prevalence. Thank you for the great feedback and understanding of the study. Fingers crossed it will all go well for a MSc research project.
Cara Woodards 25 Sep 2015
In reply to nickinscottishmountains:

Hello,

Thanks very much for filling in the survey. Correct as mentioned to kp64zl i will focus more on associations with styles of climbing, exposure to climbing and previous climbing injuries. Thanks for the feedback, hopefully i will get a large number of respondents to create some useful data.

Cara Woodards 27 Sep 2015
In reply to Cara Woodards:

Thanks very much for your feedback it's really appreciated.
 EddieA 30 Sep 2015
In reply to Cara Woodards:

Interesting research - I completed your questionnaire and I was curious as my dad (non-climber) got Dupuytrens in his seventies. Biggest risk factors seem be genetics (Scandinavian/Viking origin) age (usually over 50) and being male.

There was a previous discussion on this about 5 years ago which is worth revisiting if you haven't already:
http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=1312

Two suggestions for your questionnaire:

1) Your survey focuses on intensity of climbing activity and injuries during the last 12 months, when previous work (see the link above) indicates it is the long-term intensity and injury history over a whole climbing lifetime that are the likely risk factors. You could also (or instead) ask people how many climbs they have done and how long they have been climbing, and their average grade over that whole period. All these stats are potentially available from online logbooks so should be easy for people to give them to you. This should give you a set of indicators or compound index of life-time climbing "intensity" (frequency x difficulty x years' duration). You'd have to keep your questions on training intensity too, as that may be as big a risk factor as climbing intensity, particularly as people train more for each logged climb they do.

2) You ask about height, weight and age, but with genetics such a strong predictor it might be worth asking your survey respondents two additional things: a) whether a parent or close relative has ever had Dupuytrens and b) their ethnicity (in fairly specific terms) - Viking and Celtic seem to be the biggest groups at risk.

When you've taken out the effects of age and genetics, and you have a measure of life-time intensity of climbing, and not just what people are doing this year, you might have a better chance of picking out the link between Dupuytrens and different forms of climbing, or associations with other climbing injuries.

Your consent forms are exemplary and question really clear - nice to see. Good luck with your work!

Eddie

Cara Woodards 30 Sep 2015
In reply to EddieA:

Hi Eddie,

Thanks very much for completing the survey. I hadn't seen that previous article on Dupuytren's, it looks great. Your suggestions are two great valid points to consider thank you for the feedback. It would have been a good idea to ask if either parent had Dupuytren's as there is research suggesting that genetic's may have a part to play. It is also associated with occupations of manual hand's on work.

Thanks again for your time.
Cara Woodards 01 Oct 2015
In reply to Cara Woodards:

Thanks for all the great feedback everyone, both on the forum and via email. If you have not yet taken part in the survey please see the link in the initial post. I'm getting close to my participation target and any help would be greatly appreciated.

New Topic
This topic has been archived, and won't accept reply postings.
Loading Notifications...