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• International Olympic Committee consensus statement: methods for recording and reporting of epidemiological data on injury and illness in sport 2020 (including STROBE Extension for Sport Injury and Illness Surveillance (STROBE-SIIS))
  Christa Janse van Rensburg
  Published on: 9 April 2020
• Response to “International Olympic Committee consensus statement: methods for recording and reporting of epidemiological data on injury and illness in sport 2020 (including STROBE Extension for Sport Injury and Illness Surveillance (STROBE-SIIS))
  Neil Gibson, Matthew Whalan and John A Sampson
  Published on: 2 April 2020

• Published on: 9 April 2020

  International Olympic Committee consensus statement: methods for recording and reporting of epidemiological data on injury and illness in sport 2020 (including STROBE Extension for Sport Injury and Illness Surveillance (STROBE-SIIS))

  • Christa Janse van Rensburg, Sports Physician and Rheumatologist University of Pretoria

  Allow me to make use of the opportunity to extend my appreciation to the BJSM for being a publication of high standing, bringing cutting edge information to the sports medical fraternity.
  Thank you for the consensus statement of the International Olympic Committee describing the methods for recording and reporting of epidemiological data on injury and illness in sport 2020 (including STROBE Extension for Sport Injury and Illness Surveillance (STROBE-SIIS))”.[1] I found it both informative and useful.
  I have a comment about the use of the word “Nervous” in the first column of Table 5. It is an adjective whereas the rest of the words in the column are nouns that more accurately describe the tissue type under discussion. It is possibly only a linguistic error, but I am of the opinion that it should be “Nerve” or “Neural tissue”.

  Reference
  1. Bahr R, Clarsen B, Derman W, et al. International Olympic Committee consensus statement: methods for recording and reporting of epidemiological data on injury and illness in sport 2020 (including STROBE Extension for Sport Injury and Illness Surveillance (STROBE-SIIS)). Br J Sports Med Published Online First: 18 February 2020. doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2019-101969

  Conflict of Interest:
  None declared.

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• Published on: 2 April 2020

  Response to “International Olympic Committee consensus statement: methods for recording and reporting of epidemiological data on injury and illness in sport 2020 (including STROBE Extension for Sport Injury and Illness Surveillance (STROBE-SIIS))

  • Neil Gibson, PhD candidate 1 Centre for Medical and Exercise Physiology, School of Medicine, University of Wollongong, Australia
  • Other Contributors:
    • Matthew Whalan, Physiotherapist and PhD candidate
    • John A Sampson, Senior Lecturer

  We read with interest the recent International Olympic Committee consensus statement: methods for recording and reporting of epidemiological data on injury and illness in sport 2020 (including STROBE Extension for Sport Injury and Illness Surveillance (STROBE-SIIS))”.[1] While helping to clarify aspects associated with recording and reporting epidemiological data, based on the definitions included in the statement, we believe that some of the examples in Table 10 require clarification with regards to the recording of injuries and calculation of time loss.

  Consider the example for ‘Delayed’ time loss: Sunday injury, thigh contusion, able to train on Monday and Tuesday but unable to train on Wednesday and returns on Sunday (time loss starts on Wednesday even though the injury was on Sunday). Time loss (days) 3. Given the recommended reported time loss of 3-days, and definition provided whereby “time-loss days should be counted from the day after the onset that the athlete is unable to participate”, we assume Wednesday is considered as the day of onset (day 0), with subsequent impact on Thursday, Friday and Saturday resulting in a 3-day time-loss (days). When considering this example, we were then somewhat confused by the example for, ‘Intermittent’ time loss: boy with Osgood-Schlatter disease that gets reported at the start of a training camp on Monday. The player may train fully on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, but miss training on Wednesday and Friday (time loss co...

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  We read with interest the recent International Olympic Committee consensus statement: methods for recording and reporting of epidemiological data on injury and illness in sport 2020 (including STROBE Extension for Sport Injury and Illness Surveillance (STROBE-SIIS))”.[1] While helping to clarify aspects associated with recording and reporting epidemiological data, based on the definitions included in the statement, we believe that some of the examples in Table 10 require clarification with regards to the recording of injuries and calculation of time loss.

  Consider the example for ‘Delayed’ time loss: Sunday injury, thigh contusion, able to train on Monday and Tuesday but unable to train on Wednesday and returns on Sunday (time loss starts on Wednesday even though the injury was on Sunday). Time loss (days) 3. Given the recommended reported time loss of 3-days, and definition provided whereby “time-loss days should be counted from the day after the onset that the athlete is unable to participate”, we assume Wednesday is considered as the day of onset (day 0), with subsequent impact on Thursday, Friday and Saturday resulting in a 3-day time-loss (days). When considering this example, we were then somewhat confused by the example for, ‘Intermittent’ time loss: boy with Osgood-Schlatter disease that gets reported at the start of a training camp on Monday. The player may train fully on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, but miss training on Wednesday and Friday (time loss counted as Wednesday and Friday only). Time loss (days) 2. Herein, applying the time-loss definition provided in the consensus statement [1] and the logic applied to the delayed time loss example, should the Wednesday not be considered as the onset of time loss and therefore counted as day 0? Based on the two examples and the time-loss (days) provided for each we feel as if time-loss (days) has been calculated differently and as such wish for the authors to clarify. From our position we agree with recording time-loss from the day after the injury when the injury occurs during training on that day, but if an athlete is unable to participate at all due to injury we feel as if this could be considered day 1 of time-loss.

  In relation to the above examples it is also unclear as to why these have been considered as single injury reports (cases) given the definitions provided within the consensus statement, “subsequent injuries to the same location and tissue as the index injury are recurrences if the index injury was healed/fully recovered; they are exacerbations if the index injury was not yet healed/fully recovered”, when healed/fully recovered is when an “athlete is fully available for training and competition”.[1] Herein, for the delayed time loss and intermittent time loss examples we would interpret that the injury examples should be considered as multiple injury reports (cases). For delayed time loss, the first case would open following the initial injury on the Sunday and close when the athlete is considered healed/fully recovered, when they return to full training Monday, before a subsequent recurrence on the Wednesday, second case open, which closes on the Sunday (Figure 1a). Similarly for intermittent time loss, it seems that the initial case opens with the initial injury report Monday, closes when the athlete trained fully Monday, second injury case opens on Wednesday as the athlete is unable to train and closes Thursday upon full return to training, before another case opens on the Friday (Figure 1b).

  INSERT FIGURE 1A AND 1B ABOUT HERE

  Moreover, if the intermittent time loss example should in fact be considered as multiple injury reports (cases), based on time-loss methods suggested within the paper, both Wednesday and Friday would be considered as the onset of time loss and counted as day 0. Therefore, although the athlete missed two days of training, 0 time loss (days) would be calculated (Figure 1b). As a result such an approach for calculating time loss may lead to underreporting. We feel as if this supports our view that an athlete reporting injured at the start of training (and does not participate at all), incurs the first day of time loss and in this example results in two 1-day time-loss events linked to two subsequent injury reports (cases).

  It is not our intention to challenge the authors and indeed the updated consensus statements has provided valuable recommendations for injury surveillance. Additionally, we are pleased to see the inclusion of examples within the paper as in our areas of research such examples are a regular occurrence. However, based on the two examples provided, we feel that there are discrepancies with regards to the calculation of time-loss (days) and a lack of clarity surrounding injury recording, specifically with respect to what keeps an injury report (case) open (delayed and intermittent time loss examples). We therefore ask the authors to consider clarification on each point we raise in this letter.

  References
  Bahr R, Clarsen B, Derman W, et al. International Olympic Committee consensus statement: methods for recording and reporting of epidemiological data on injury and illness in sport 2020 (including STROBE Extension for Sport Injury and Illness Surveillance (STROBE-SIIS)). Br J Sports Med Published Online First: 18 February 2020. doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2019-101969

  Figure Descriptions
  Figure 1: Injury examples from the International Olympic Committee consensus statement, with the inclusion of injury cases and associated time loss (days), based on the healed/fully recovered and time loss (days) definitions provided.

  Tables and Figures
  Figure available upon reasonable request

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  Conflict of Interest:
  None declared.

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