New trail running injury screening decision aid for clinicians

Trail running is a popular off-road activity that exposes athletes to variable and challenging
environments and conditions. Although running has numerous health benefits, trail running is also
associated with a high risk of injury. During races in remote areas medical support can be challenging,
which prompts the need to identify runners at an increased risk for injury before race participation.
However, with trail running only recently gaining popularity and having fewer participants, clinicians are
not regularly exposed to the injury risk management of trail runners. Currently, no clinical decision aid
exists for trail running. For these reasons a recent study aimed to develop a clinical decision aid for
clinicians to screen for increased injury risk in trail runners. The researchers developed a 26-item Trail
Running Injury Screening Instrument (TRISI) by consulting the published literature and trail runners’
opinion, along with identifying risk factors from cross-sectional and prospective cohort studies. The
instrument was designed not to predict injury among trail runners but to highlight areas of potential
clinical interest regarding increased risk of injury. The TRISI will be made available as an application
hosted on the latest Android and iPhone Operating Systems which clinicians can use during their normal
patient assessment procedure. The clinician can then use the information derived from the TRISI to
design individualised risk management strategies, including health education, to mitigate the trail
runner’s risk of injury during training and racing.

Reference for this summary:
Carel Viljoen, Dina C. Janse van Rensburg, Willem van Mechelen, Evert Verhagen, Elzette Korkie, Tanita
Botha. Development of a trail running injury screening instrument: A multiple methods approach.
Physical Therapy in Sport, 56 (2022), 60-75.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1466853X2200089X