Stress fractures of the tibia: can personality traits help us detect the injury-prone athlete?

One of the few serious drawbacks associated,vith running is overuse injurie s such as stress fractures of the tibia, which cause local pain and smellin g, often resulting in a temporary cessation of training. Whereas some runne rs rarely become injured, others experience recurrent injuries even during fairly short periods of time. The aim of the present study was to compare s elected personality traits in a group of runners who had sustained a previo us tibial stress fracture (n=17), with a matched group of runners (n=17) wh o had never experienced stress fractures. The results indicated that the in jured runners, especially the women, scored higher than the non-injured run ners did on inventories measuring both the Type A behavior pattern and exer cise dependency. Since motivation, ambitiousness, and competitiveness are i ntegral parts of these inventories, high scoring individuals might be part of a high-risk population for running injuries, the more so if the individu al also feels dependent on regular running for managing stress related mood states, which was the case particularly for the injured women in the prese nt study. However, the somewhat limited number of runners who had had a con firmatory scintigram, which was a criterion for inclusion in the study, war rants a cautious interpretation of the results. The findings nevertheless s uggest that in order to prevent recurrent injuries, health education profes sionals and clinicians ought to focus on conveying the importance of detect ing precursors of injury, and the subsequent steps which should be taken to avoid developing a serious injury.