Medical encounters (including injury and illness) at mass community-based endurance sports events : an international consensus statement on definitions and methods of data recording and reporting

Mass participation endurance sports events are popular but a large number of participants are older and may be at risk of medical complications during events. Medical encounters (defined fully in the statement) include those traditionally considered ‘musculoskeletal’ (eg, strains) and those due to ‘illness’ (eg, cardiac, respiratory, endocrine). The rate of sudden death during mass endurance events (running, cycling and triathlon) is between 0.4 and 3.3 per 100 000 entrants. The rate of other serious medical encounters (eg, exertional heat stroke, hyponatraemia) is rarely reported; in runners it can be up to 100 times higher than that of sudden death, that is, between 16 and 155 per 100 000 race entrants. This consensus statement has two goals. It (1) defines terms for injury and illness-related medical encounters, severity and timing of medical encounters, and diagnostic categories of medical encounters, and (2) describes the methods for recording data at mass participation endurance sports events and reporting results to authorities and for publication. This unifying consensus statement will allow data from various events to be compared and aggregated. This will inform athlete/patient management, and thus make endurance events safer.Supplementary Table 1: Methodology to identify the source information used by the consensus groupSupplementary Table 2: Additional comments and examples related to Table 1: Definitions of medical encounters and medical problemsSupplementary Table 3: Diagnostic categories of illness-related medical encounters by main organ system and more common specific types / diagnosis of medical encounters (modified from OSCIS 10.1)Supplementary Table 4: Illness-Related Race Medical Encounter Data (R-MED) Form - Endurance Sport EventsSupplementary Table 5: Diagnostic categories of injury-related medical encounters by main anatomical region and more common injury types / diagnosis (modified from OSICS 10.1)Supplementary Table 6: Injury-Related Race Medical Encounter Data (R-MED) Form - Endurance Sport EventsIOC Research Center grant to the University of Pretoria and (IOC Grant for study entitled: ’Reducing Medical Complications and Injuries at Endurance Sports Events: A 20-year Longitudinal Study (2008–2027). INTERNATIONAL MILLION+ ATHLETE PROJECT-SAFER (IMAPS)'.http://bjsm.bmj.comhj2020Sports Medicin