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Biomedical subjects

C Finch

Publications and source records attributed to C Finch.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2005

Do squash players accurately report use of appropriate protective eyewear?

Self-report surveys are a common method of collecting data on protective equipment use in sport. The aim of this study was to assess the validity of self-reported use of appropriate protective eyewear by squash players. Surveys of squash players' appropriate protective eyewear behaviours were conducted over two consecutive years (2002 and 2003) at randomly-selected squash venues in Melbourne, Australia. Over the two years, 1219 adult players were surveyed (response rate of 92%). Trained observers also recorded the actual on-court appropriate protective eyewear behaviours of all players during the survey sessions. Eyewear use rates calculated from both data sources were compared. The self-reported appropriate protective eyewear use rate (9.4%; 95% CI 7.8, 11.0) was significantly higher (1.6 times more) than the observed rate (5.9%; 95%CI 4.6, 7.2). This suggests that players may over-report their use of appropriate protective equipment, though some may have incorrectly classified their eyewear as being appropriate or suitably protective. Studies that rely only on self-report data on protective equipment use need to take into account that this could lead to biased estimates.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Measurement of scapula upward rotation: a reliable clinical procedure.

BACKGROUND: It is important to deal with the scapula when developing rehabilitation strategies for the shoulder complex. This requires clinical measurement tools that are readily available and easy to apply and which provide a reliable evaluation of scapula motion. AIM: To determine the reliability of the Plurimeter-V gravity inclinometer for the measurement of scapular upward rotation positions during humeral elevation in coronal abduction in a group of patients with shoulder pathology. METHOD: Twenty six patients were assessed in two repeat tests within a single testing session. Patients exhibiting a wide spectrum of shoulder pathology were selected. The angle of scapular upward rotation was measured during total shoulder abduction. The measurement protocol was performed twice during a single testing session by a single tester. Results of the two tests were compared and the reliability assessed by intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs). RESULTS: There was no significant difference in the scapula measurements taken during the two tests at each testing position. Overall, there was very good intrarater reliability (ICC = 0.88). The ICC ranged from 0.81 (at 135 degrees) to 0.94 (at both resting and end of total shoulder abduction range). CONCLUSION: The Plurimeter-V gravity inclinometer can be used effectively and reliably for measuring upward rotation of the scapula in all ranges of shoulder abduction in the coronal plane.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Classifying sports medicine diagnoses: a comparison of the International classification of diseases 10-Australian modification (ICD-10-AM) and the Orchard sports injury classification system (OSICS-8).

BACKGROUND: The International classification of diseases 10-Australian modification (ICD-10-AM) and the Orchard sports injury classification system (OSICS-8) are two classifications currently being used in sports injury research. OBJECTIVES: To compare these two systems to determine which was the more reliable and easier to apply in the classification of injury diagnoses of patients who presented to sports physicians in private sports medicine practice. METHODS: Ten sports physicians/sports physician registrars each coded one of 10 different lists of 30 sports medicine diagnoses according to both ICD-10-AM and OSICS-8 in random order. The coders noted the time taken to apply each classification system, and allocated an ease of fit score for individual diagnoses into the systems. The 300 diagnoses were each coded twice more by "expert" coders from each system, and these results compared with those of the 10 volunteers. RESULTS: Overall, there was a higher level of agreement between the different coders for OSICS-8 than for ICD-10-AM. On average, it was 23.5 minutes quicker to complete the task with OSICS-8 than with ICD-10-AM. Furthermore, there was also higher concordance between the three coders with OSICS-8. Subjective analysis of the codes assigned indicated reasons for disagreement and showed that, in some instances, even the "expert" coders had difficulties in assigning the most appropriate codes. CONCLUSIONS: Based on the results of this study, OSICS-8 appears to be the preferred system for use by inexperienced coders in sports medicine research. The agreement between coders was, however, lower than expected. It is recommended that changes be made to both OSICS-8 and ICD-10-AM to improve their reliability for use in sports medicine research.

Abbreviated Injury Scale↗
PubMed2005

The effectiveness of a squash eyewear promotion strategy.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the protective eyewear promotion (PEP) project, which was a comprehensive educational strategy to increase the use of appropriate protective eyewear by squash players. METHODS: An ecological study design was used. Four squash venues in one playing association were randomly chosen to receive PEP and four in another association maintained usual practice and hence formed a control group. The primary evaluation measurements were surveys of cross sectional samples of players carried out before and after the intervention. The surveys investigated players' knowledge, behaviours, and attitudes associated with the use of protective eyewear. The survey carried out after the intervention also determined players' exposure to PEP. Univariate and multivariate analyses were undertaken to describe differences at PEP venues from pre- to post-intervention and to compare these with the control venues. RESULTS: The PEP players had 2.4 times the odds (95% confidence interval, 1.3 to 4.2) of wearing appropriate eyewear compared with control group players post-intervention, relative to the groups' pre-intervention baselines. Components of PEP, such as stickers and posters and the availability and prominent positioning of the project eyewear, were found to contribute to players adopting favourable eyewear behaviours. CONCLUSIONS: Components of the PEP intervention were shown to be effective. The true success will be the sustainability and dissemination of the project, favourable eyewear behaviours, and evidence of the prevention of eye injuries long into the future.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

The validity of a four week self-recall of sports injuries.

The ability of sports injury studies to provide reliable incidence estimates depends on accurate injury data. One of the most commonly used methods of collecting injury data is through self-report, but the validity of such information is largely unknown. This study validated a four week self-report sports injury recall against a range of external sources including hospital records, health practitioner records, and third parties. Cases were drawn from the larger, Western Australian Sports Injury Study (WASIS). This study demonstrates acceptable to good levels of agreement between self-report and more objective data in relation to details such as the nature and body part injured, and the level of injury treatment sought (kappa = 0.48 to 0.78). However, self-reported injury severity did not agree with the Injury Severity Score classification of severity.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Should football players wear custom fitted mouthguards? Results from a group randomised controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE: Head/orofacial (H/O) injuries are common in Australian rules football. Mouthguards are widely promoted to prevent these injuries, in spite of the lack of formal evidence for their effectiveness. DESIGN: The Australian football injury prevention project was a cluster randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of mouthguards for preventing H/O injuries in these players. SETTING AND SUBJECTS: Twenty three teams (301 players) were recruited from the largest community football league in Australia. INTERVENTION: Teams were randomly allocated to either the MG: custom made mouthguard or C: control (usual mouthguard behaviours) study arm. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: All injuries, participation in training and games, and mouthguard use were monitored over the 2001 playing season. Injury rates were calculated as the number of injuries per 1000 person hours of playing time. Adjusted incidence rate ratios were obtained from Poisson regression models. RESULTS: Players in both study arms wore mouthguards, though it is unlikely that many controls wore custom made ones. Wearing rates were higher during games than training. The overall rate of H/O injury was 2.7 injuries per 1000 exposure hours. The rate of H/O injury was higher during games than training. The adjusted H/O injury incidence rate ratio was 0.56 (95% CI 0.32 to 0.97) for MG versus C during games and training, combined. CONCLUSIONS: There was a significant protective effect of custom made mouthguards, relative to usual mouthguard use, during games. However, the control players still wore mouthguards throughout the majority of games and this could have diluted the effect.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Estimating the incidence of hospitalized injurious falls: impact of varying case definitions.

AIM: To assess the validity of widely used approaches to estimate the incidence of hospitalized falls. METHODS: Internal probabilistic data linkage of the 2000-01 New South Wales Inpatient Statistics Collection was used to identify first admissions for injurious falls. RESULTS: Using data linkage techniques, a total of 20,883 (93.9%, 95% CI 93.5 to 94.2) cases were identified as first admission for injurious falls corresponding to an incidence rate of 1161.4 per 100,000. The exclusion of non-acute admissions approach provided the best estimate of incidence (1185.4 per 100,000 people). When comparing the performance of different approaches to identifying first admissions to that of the data linkage "gold standard", the method based on the transfer variable performed best in terms of sensitivity and specificity. CONCLUSIONS: All the examined approaches have relatively low specificity raising questions about their use. The introduction of a unique patient identifier and the date of injury in hospital discharge datasets would facilitate the identification of incident cases of fall related hospitalizations.

Accidental Falls↗
PubMed2004

Non-participation in sports injury research: why football players choose not to be involved.

OBJECTIVE: To ascertain the reasons behind players not participating in a sports safety research project. METHODS: During the preseason, 10 Australian football clubs volunteered 23 teams to participate in a protective equipment randomised controlled trial, the Australian Football Injury Prevention Project (AFIPP). All players from these teams were invited to participate. Players who did not agree to participate in AFIPP were surveyed about their reasons for non-involvement. RESULTS: 110 football players (response rate 63.6%) completed the non-responder survey and cited the two main reasons behind non-involvement in the project as "I did not know about the project" (39.4%) and "I was not at training when the research team visited" (36.5%). CONCLUSIONS: and implications: Preseason may not be the best time for maximal player recruitment in community based sports safety research. Enhanced communication between researchers and players at community level football clubs during the recruitment phase is likely to improve response rates.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

The multi-disciplinary evaluation of a national agri-environment scheme.

With an increasing amount of public funds being spent on agri-environmental schemes effective methods have to be developed to evaluate them. As many schemes have multiple objectives there is a need for a multi-disciplinary approach to any evaluation. A method was developed to assess the degree to which ecological, landscape, historical and access objectives for the Countryside Stewardship Scheme (CSS) in England have been met. The method used a sample of 484 agreements for which data were collected from surveys, a desk study and an interview with the agreement holder. These data were then evaluated by an expert team of an ecologist, landscape architect, landscape historian, and a social scientist specializing in rural affairs. The team were subsequently brought together with a Chair to discuss their findings for each agreement, allocating scores for each of five criteria: agreement negotiation; appropriateness, environmental effectiveness, compliance and side effects. The additionality that each agreement was likely to provide was also assessed. The results of this process suggest that in the majority of cases the CSS agreements should maintain or enhance the environment in terms of ecology, landscape, and landscape history and increase public enjoyment of the countryside. Thirty-six percent of agreements showed high additionality and 38% medium additionality which demonstrates that the CSS is likely to provide a benefit to society. Agreement negotiation, predicted environmental effectiveness and predicted compliance all improved significantly over the period 1996-98. Recommendations made from this project have been implemented by the Government department to improve the CSS. The multi-disciplinary method was successful and, with further development, could be used for assessment of any agri-environment scheme, or potentially any conservation project or broader 'rural development' scheme encompassing environmental, economic and social objectives. A key to success is the need for the criteria to be tailored for the project concerned and clearly established at the beginning.

Agriculture↗
PubMed2003

Localization of monoamine oxidase A and B and semicarbazide-sensitive amine oxidase in human peripheral tissues.

Monoamine oxidase (MAO) A and B and semicarbazide-sensitive amine oxidase (SSAO) localizations in peripheral human tissues were compared by immunohistochemistry. The primary antibodies used were mouse monoclonal anti-human MAO-A (6G11/E1) and anti-human MAO-B (3F12/G10/2E3) and a rabbit polyclonal anti-bovine SSAO antibody. Immunoreactivities of the samples, obtained from 6 routine autopsy cases, showed different distributions in the tissues studied (heart, lung, duodenum, liver, pancreas, spleen, thyroid gland, adrenal gland and kidney). The relative MAO-A, MAO-B and SSAO distributions indicated a widespread distribution of these enzymes in the human body that is characterized by a matching cellular pattern in only few tissues. These differences suggest that each amine oxidase may play a specific function in, at least some, peripheral tissues.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2002

The playing habits and other commitments of elite junior Australian football players.

The Victorian Football League Under 18 (VFL U18) competition provides a pathway to the elite senior level of Australian football. Players involved in the VFL U18 competition also play football in other contexts, including for school and local clubs, and can have considerable additional work and educational demands. A total of 103 elite junior Australian football players from six VFL U18 clubs participated in a survey that asked about their football playing habits and other commitments. The median age of players when they first joined their VFL U18 squad was 16.3 years. The players participated in a median of five weekly training sessions during the last two weeks of the 1999 preseason and played a median of five preseason games. Fifty percent of the players expected to participate in 3-4 training sessions per week and 25% expected to play more than two games per week during the 1999 season. Half of the players reported ambitions to play Australian Football League (AFL) football. Further research is needed to determine whether or not high participation levels have negative impacts on performance and injury risk in these players.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Australian football: injury profile at the community level.

Successful injury prevention relies on injury surveillance to establish the extent of the problem, to monitor injury patterns and to evaluate prevention strategies. Despite the popularity of participation in Australian football at the community level, few injury surveillance studies have been published describing the pattern of injuries at this level of participation. In contrast, ongoing injury surveillance at the elite-level is well established. Reliance on injury data from the elite-level of Australian football to guide injury prevention at the community level may not be appropriate due to differences across the levels with respect to exposure, fitness and skill level. Therefore, specific injury surveillance at the community level of Australian football is warranted. This study describes the epidemiology of community level Australian football injuries. Injury surveillance was undertaken in five amateur Australian football clubs over the 1999 season. The 320 participating players sustained 421 injuries over the season. The overall rate of injury was 27 injuries per 1000 player hours. Injuries were most commonly sustained at the start of the season and during the second quarter of match participation. Hamstring muscle strains were the most common injury sustained, followed by thigh haematomas and lateral ligament sprains of the ankle. The injury surveillance system used in this study was well accepted by the clubs and provides detailed data for the prioritisation of future injury prevention research at the community level of Australian football.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Safety attitudes and beliefs of junior Australian football players.

OBJECTIVES: To describe the safety attitudes and beliefs of junior (aged 16-18 years) Australian football players. SETTING: Six Victorian Football League Under 18 (VFL U18) clubs in Victoria, Australia. METHODS: Cross sectional survey. Altogether 103 players completed a self report questionnaire about their safety beliefs and perceptions of support when injured, across three contexts in which they played: VFL U18 club, local club, and school. RESULTS: Although only 6% believed it was safe to play with injuries, 58% were willing to risk doing so. This increased to almost 80% when players perceived that their chances of being selected to play for a senior elite team would be adversely affected if they did not play. There were significant differences in the perceived level of support for injured players and in the ranking of safety as a high priority across the three settings. In general, the VFL U18 clubs were perceived as providing good support for injured players and giving a high priority to safety issues, but local clubs and particularly schools were perceived to address these issues less well. CONCLUSIONS: Junior Australian football players have certain beliefs and perceptions in relation to injury risk that have the potential to increase injuries. These negative beliefs need to be addressed in any comprehensive injury prevention strategy aimed at these players.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

A profile of Australian football injuries presenting to sports medicine clinics.

Most of the published data describing Australian football injuries is from hospital emergency departments and elite injury surveillance studies. There is a lack of good information about injuries to players at the lower levels of participation and those not severe enough to warrant hospital treatment. This study describes the profile of Australian football injuries that present to sports medicine clinics for treatment. New sports injury cases, presenting to five metropolitan Melbourne sports medicine clinics during a 12 month period in 1996-1997, were recorded through the Sports Medicine Injury Surveillance project. Both the patient and treating health professional provided personal and injury details. Australian football accounted for 29% of the 6479 recorded injury cases. The majority of injured players were male (99%) and from adult, community leagues (78%); the mean age was 23 years. Competition accounted for 78% of injuries and 72% of injured players presented for treatment to a sports physician/medical practitioner. Body contact accounted for half of all injuries and the most common injuries were medial ligament sprains of the knee (7%), lateral ligament sprains of the ankle (6%) and anterior cruciate ligament injuries (4%). In conclusion, sports medicine clinics treat a wide variety of football injuries and appear to be a good source of data about injuries to non-elite participants.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

Current injury or disability as a barrier to being more physically active.

PURPOSE: To assess the extent to which a current injury or disability is a significant barrier to being more active. METHODS: Data on current injury or disability as a reported barrier to being more physically active were extracted from an urban-representative population survey. Multivariate logistic regression analyses assessed the association between gender, educational attainment, age, body mass index, and current physical activity levels with injury or disability as a barrier. RESULTS: Twenty percent of the survey respondents gave current injury or disability as a reason for not being more active. There were no significant differences between male and female subjects. There was a significant trend toward a higher reporting of current injury or disability as a barrier, with increasing age (P < 0.001). High body mass index (P < 0.001) and current physical activity levels (P < 0.05) were significantly related to the injury or disability barrier. The only variables significantly independently associated in multivariate logistic regression analyses were age and body mass index. CONCLUSIONS: Current injury or disability as a barrier to increased physical activity was independently, and significantly, associated with both age and body mass index, after adjusting for other variables. The promotion of increased physical activity to older and overweight groups should focus on safe activities that do not aggravate previous injuries or disabilities.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed2000

Awareness of and attitudes to the new physical activity recommendations--perceptions of attenders of the 5th IOC World Congress on Sport Science.

New evidence suggests that regular moderate intensity physical activity confers substantial health benefits. This information needs to be conveyed to exercise and sports professionals, as they have a potential lead role in broader public education to encourage physical activity. This study reports data from a survey of attenders at a sports medicine/sports science conference in Sydney in November 1999. Of the 292 who responded, only one third had ever heard of the United States Surgeon General's report on physical activity and health, and 43% had heard of the Active Australia initiative. Those who were members of Sports Medicine Australia (SMA), female or younger responders were more likely to recall Active Australia. An understanding of the moderate physical activity message was highest among sports physicians, and those who already perceived physical activity advice to be part of their role, and lowest among exercise and posrts scientists. The study suggests the need for professional education strategies to be developed in this area for exercise and sports scientists.

Australia↗