Development of a standardized questionnaire to report mechanisms of fall-related injuries in sport climbing

• Luiggi Maxime
• Martha Cécile

INTRODUCTION Sport climbing is rapidly growing in popularity. While falls are frequent and mostly harmless given the recommended positioning during a fall, the most severe and very severe injuries in sport climbing have been caused by a fall. However, the respective contribution of fall mechanisms to the burden of fall-related injury (FRI) in sport climbing is little understood. In case of FRI, mechanisms are primarily asked to the climber and the belayer by sport climbing responsible or rescue teams, but no standardized tool exists to report the fall mechanisms that led to injury. The main purpose of this study was thus to develop a reliable standardized self-report tool of fall mechanisms. METHOD Fall mechanisms were compiled from a previous empirical study (1). A total of 40 fall mechanisms were divided into three fall temporalities dimensions: 1) the reasons that lead to the fall (FR; n=12); 2) the climber’s or belayer’s behaviors during the fall (FB; n=19); 3) the details concerning the end of the fall (FE; n=9). A questionnaire was developed with four boxes. The first three boxes included items representing FE, FB and FE. The last box included the location of the body hit in case of collision during the fall. A pilot study was conducted between January, 30th, 2023 and February, 13th, 2023 in a french sport climbing gym to assess the internal validity of the tool. A researcher observed climbers ascents, and in case of a fall, reported FE, FB and FE using the developed questionnaire. The same questionnaire was subsequently filled by the climber and the belayer without having prior knowledge of the exact content of the questionnaire. The (i) researcher and climbers and (ii) researcher and belayers levels of agreement were compared using Gwet’s AC1 agreement coefficient, overall and by fall temporalities (2). RESULTS A total of 50 falls were recorded. The overall agreement between researcher and climber was very good (0.88, 95% CI=0.86-0.89). The researcher and climber had a very good level of agreement for fall reasons (0.89, 95% CI=0.85-0.92), fall behaviors (0.81, 95% CI=0.77-0.85) and fall end (0.90, 95% CI=0.85-0.94). A very good level of agreement was also found concerning the location of the body that hit the wall (0.97, 95% CI=0.95-0.99). The overall agreement between researcher and belayer was very good (0.89, 95% CI=0.87-0.81). The researcher and climber had a very good level of agreement for fall reasons (0.89, 95% CI=0.85-0.93), fall behaviors (0.84, 95% CI=0.80-0.87) and fall end (0.92, 95% CI=0.88-0.96). A very good level of agreement was also found concerning the location of the body that hit the wall (0.96, 95% CI=0.94-0.98). CONCLUSION The level of agreement of fall mechanisms reported by the researcher, the climbers and the belayers were very good. This standardized questionnaire could be used to report fall mechanisms that led to an injury in sport climbing. Further studies are needed to compare its validity according to the climbers’ level of experience and climbing. 1Luiggi, M., Lafaye, P., & Martha, C. (2023). Epidemiology of sport climbing injuries caused by a climbing fall among climbers of the French Federation of Mountain and Climbing. Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness. https://doi.org/10.23736/S0022-4707.22.14388-4