Men at Risk

Abstract

As surfing becomes more popular the number of leisure time surfers rises. Surfing injuries become frequent in our emergency rooms. We need to find out more about the surfer’s safety behaviour and injury pattern for prevention in the future. PURPOSE: Injury pattern in the leisure time surfer and identification of risk factors. Assessment of safety behavior in surfing. METHODS: A questionnaire was handed out to leisure time surfers in European surf camps and via online platforms in 2013-2014. It included questions on demographic data, the surfer‘s injury pattern and safety behaviour. The participating surfers had to be aged 18 years (y) and older, professional surfers were excluded. The participants were divided into 4 groups due to their surf ability: beginner, intermediate, advanced and pro. Data analysis was perfomed using Microsoft Excel, ANOVA, chi-square test or the Fisher’s exact test. Two-sided p-values < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. RESULTS: 106 surfers with a mean age of 30.4 y completed the survey. Thereof 66% were men, 34% women. Participants came from 14 countries, 94% were European. The cumulative surfing days per year were 6113 (50% median 40 d). 4.7% were beginners, 67% intermediate, 24.5% advanced and 3.8% pro surfers. Altogether 258 injuries were reported in one y of surfing. The most common injuries were deep cuts and reef injuries. Only 11% of all injuries resulted in chronic health problems. The leading injury causing 30% of permanent health impairment was a traumatic shoulder injury. Correlation analysis revealed male gender as single risk factor for skin and musculo scelettal injuries (p= 0.016 and p=0.009). Neither surfing experience nor surflevel had a statistically significant influence on injury risk although the advanced surfers had the most reported injuries and the highest per-surfer-yearly-injury-rate with 6.4 injuries/y. Concerning safety behaviour 80% of the surfers want to take action to prevent further injuries. That would include more training (49%), a more surf-specific training (51%) or the use of a surf specific pocket guide (32%). Only 2 surfers would wear a protective helmet. CONCLUSIONS: A better surfing ability or more surfing experience are not associated with a decreased injury risk. Male gender has been identified as a single risk factor for skin and musculo scelettal injuries. Most surfers care for their safety and are in need of better training methods and first aid training.