Validity of injury reporting among active Swedish skydivers

• Objective: Evaluation of a national compulsory reporting system for skydiving injuries.Design: Self-report survey.Setting: The Swedish Parachute Association (SFF).Subjects: All persons renewing a Swedish skydiving license 2008 (n=1049).Main outcome measures: Sensitivity was measured as the proportion of injury events fulfilling the reporting criterion that were actually reported; Specificity was measured as the proportion of false positives in relation to the defined gold standard. Self-stated bone fractures, shoulder dislocations and cruciate ligament injuries were labeled as non-minor injuries.Results: The response rate was 100%. The overall sensitivity of the reporting system 2006/2007 was 0.37 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.24-0.51). With selfstated non-minor injuries as the target for reporting, the sensitivity was 0.67 (95% CI 0.43-0.85). No significant effect on reporting was found for gender, age, license level, years in the sport, total number of jumps or club affiliation. The specificity was 0.91 (95% CI 0.83-0.95).Conclusions: The low sensitivity will yield false low incidence calculations, but risk comparisons related to the candidate predictor variables appear reasonably valid. The false positive reporting warrants assortment of incoming data and a clarification of the reporting criterions. We propose the addition of “hospitalization Yes/No” in future reporting and endorse coordinating skydiving data collection in the Nordic countries. Further studies on attitudes to reporting are necessary to understand the drivers and constraints for achieving a more complete notification of skydiving injuries. 

Ämnesord

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Klinisk medicin -- Kirurgi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Clinical Medicine -- Surgery (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Sport parachuting

risk factors

injury prevention

reporting system

trauma database

sensitivity

specificity

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

ovr (ämneskategori)