Abstract
Background: Cycling is a popular global sport and method of transportation and a significant contributor to admissions to hospital emergency units following an injury. Mountain biking events present additional challenges with remote venues and isolated courses, for which on-site medical care is often provided, for both injury and illness occurring during races. National health data may not represent these unique events, and specific data on incidence of injury and illness in mountain biking events are essential. Therefore, the aim of this study was to review the available injury and illness literature, reporting methods and risk factors in cross-country mountain biking.
Methods: Search engines PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL (EBSCOhost), Scopus, PEDro and the Cochrane Library were systematically searched, and a grey literature search was performed. Narrative analyses of the types, severity and area of injuries and illness type and severity were performed as pooling of data was impossible due to insufficient highquality studies with the same injury and illness definitions.
Results: Seven studies comprising 28,021 participants were included for analysis. Four to 71% of participants sustained an injury in a cross-country mountain bike event. Injuries to the skin were the most common, followed by bony injuries and concussion. Five to 47% of cyclists reported the onset of gastrointestinal symptoms post-event. The prevalence of illness during events ranged from 0.5 to 23.0%.
Conclusion: The injury and illness definitions were varied and prevented clear comparisons between studies. Injury and illness present a concern in cross-country marathon mountain biking and should be investigated further to provide the true burden of these during race events.
Registration: This protocol has been registered with PROSPERO International prospective register of systematic reviews (No: CRD42019134586).
Methods: Search engines PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL (EBSCOhost), Scopus, PEDro and the Cochrane Library were systematically searched, and a grey literature search was performed. Narrative analyses of the types, severity and area of injuries and illness type and severity were performed as pooling of data was impossible due to insufficient highquality studies with the same injury and illness definitions.
Results: Seven studies comprising 28,021 participants were included for analysis. Four to 71% of participants sustained an injury in a cross-country mountain bike event. Injuries to the skin were the most common, followed by bony injuries and concussion. Five to 47% of cyclists reported the onset of gastrointestinal symptoms post-event. The prevalence of illness during events ranged from 0.5 to 23.0%.
Conclusion: The injury and illness definitions were varied and prevented clear comparisons between studies. Injury and illness present a concern in cross-country marathon mountain biking and should be investigated further to provide the true burden of these during race events.
Registration: This protocol has been registered with PROSPERO International prospective register of systematic reviews (No: CRD42019134586).
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 68 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1-11 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Sports Medicine |
| Volume | 7 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 25 Sept 2021 |
Bibliographical note
© The Author(s) 2021. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.Keywords
- Mountain biking
- Injury
- Illness
- Accidents
- Cycling
- Mountain Biking