• Current Issue
  • About Surfing Medicine
    • History
    • About
    • Team
    • Submissions
  • Authors
    • Information for Authors
    • A Call for Submissions
  • Surfer’s Medical Association
  • Archive (1987-2011)

Acute Injuries in Surfing: A Systematic Review

Oct 08, 2021 ~ Written by McArthur, et al. Review by SM Staff
  • It is heartening to see that the field of surfing medicine is sufficiently mature that not just one, but two reviews of the existing literature have recently been published. The reviews, both involving researchers at Bond University, Gold Coast, Australia cover acute surfing injuries and overuse/chronic surfing injuries. Here, in an extreme example of surfing medicine nerdiness, we review the first of those two review papers.

    McArthur and her colleagues do a very good job at explaining the systematic methodology behind an exhaustive literature search, which is eventually culled down to 19 higher-quality relevant studies, which are then categorized by strength of evidence, study design, and demographics. The paper Epidemiology of Acute Injuries in Surfing: Type, Location, Mechanism, Severity, and Incidence: A Systematic Review (PDF), then goes on to examine the injury-rates across studies as well a breakdown of injury type, location and mechanism. The authors also compare hospital-based data to that from survey-based studies and find that head/neck/face injuries were more common among hospital-based studies than among survey-based studies.

    Overall, this review article does a good job at compiling available data on acute surfing injuries from 19 different studies in several very legible figures. However, due to significant variability between how different studies classified injury type, location, and mechanism, some classifications seemed forced. For example, contusions and hematomas were classified as skin injuries and not soft tissue injuries. Also, some of the citations cited the correct author, but the wrong paper.

    Ed.

    Acute Injuries in Surfing
  • Tweet
  • Buffer
  • Pin It
Posted in Acute Surfing Injury, Literature Review
←
→
Comments are disabled

Fall 2021 Issue #34 Table of Contents

  • Letter from the Editor
  • Impact of SMA Conferences on Wellbeing
  • Surfing and Health in the Covid-19 Era: A Narrative Review
  • Case Report: Femur Fracture in a Kitesurfer
  • Images in Surfing Medicine
  • Characteristics of Surfers as Bystander Rescuers in Europe
  • Acute Injuries in Surfing: A Systematic Review
  • Mag Bay 2021

Past Issues

Browse by Category

  • Acute Surfing Injury (19)
  • Assorted Flotsam and Jetsam (6)
  • Case Report (13)
  • Chronic Surfing Injury (8)
  • Conference Report (1)
  • Conferences (1)
  • Environmental Injury (10)
  • History of Surfing Medicine (2)
  • Images in Surfing Medicine (1)
  • Infectious Disease (5)
  • Letter from the Editor (9)
  • Literature Review (9)
  • Original Research (6)
  • Other (3)
  • Rehabilitation (2)
  • Surfing Conferences (6)
  • Travel Medicine (5)
  • Uncategorized (1)

Most Popular

  • Sea Ulcers 288 views
  • Larger Than Life, Don James, MD 84 views
  • Sun Protection for Surfers 57 views
  • Case Report: A Nicaraguan Stowaway 56 views

Tag Cloud

Abscess ACL repair Aging Auditory Exostosis Big Wave Surfing Botfly Central America Concussion Conference Report Dangerous Marine Animals Dermatobium Homonis Drowning Evacuation External Auditory Exostosis Femur fractur Head Injury injury kitesurfing Knee Injury Literature review: Surfing Injuries Marine Envenomations Message from Editor Nambila Paddle Out Ceremony Palliative Care Pro Surfing Rehabilitation Sea Ulcer Stingray Summer Surfer's Ear Surfing Surfing Death Surfing Injury Surfing Therapy Swimmer's Ear Tavarua Veterans Vets

Copyright Notice

All written content on this website is the copyright of the Surfer's Medical Association. Material may not be reproduced for commercial or non-commercial uses without express permission from editor. Contact the Editor to request the appropriate permission.

© 2013

Contact the Editor

Contact the editor at [email protected]

Join SMA

Learn more about Surfer's Medical Association
Top