ReviewSports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.)2010
Evaluation of injury and fatality risk in rock and ice climbing.
Review in Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 159 citations in OpenAlex.
- Climbing Accidents-Prospective Data Analysis from the International Alpine Trauma Registry and Systematic Review of the Literature.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2019Pooled it
- Coordination in Climbing: Effect of Skill, Practice and Constraints Manipulation.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2016Pooled it
- Musculoskeletal injuries in rock climbing: a scoping review.BMJ open sport & exercise medicine · 2026Review
- Prospective analysis of injury demographics, distribution, severity and risk factors in adolescent climbers.BMJ open sport & exercise medicine · 2025Article
- The Connection Between Resistance Training, Climbing Performance, and Injury Prevention.Sports medicine - open · 2024Review
- Painfully ignorant? Impact of gender and aim of training on injuries in climbing.BMJ open sport & exercise medicine · 2024Article
- Adventure Recreation in Blue Spaces and the Wellbeing of Young Polish Adults.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- A Life Dedicated to Climbing and Its Sequelae in the Fingers-A Review of the Literature.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Review
- Profiles of Wellbeing in Soft and Hard Mountain Hikers.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Epidemiological Study of Foot Injuries in the Practice of Sport Climbing.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Personal Resources of Winter and Summer Hikers Visiting the Tatra National Park, Poland.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Injuries in outdoor climbing: a retrospective single-centre cohort study at a level 1 emergency department in Switzerland.BMJ open sport & exercise medicine · 2022Article
- Patterns of traumatic outdoor rock-climbing injuries in Sweden between 2008 and 2019.Journal of experimental orthopaedics · 2021Article
- Future-Oriented Coping with Weather Stress among Mountain Hikers: Temperamental Personality Predictors and Profiles.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Rock Climbing Emergencies in the Austrian Alps: Injury Patterns, Risk Analysis and Preventive Measures.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Article
- Mortality in Different Mountain Sports Activities Primarily Practiced in the Summer Season-A Narrative Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2019Review
- Long-Term Radiographic Adaptations to Stress of High-Level and Recreational Rock Climbing in Former Adolescent Athletes: An 11-Year Prospective Longitudinal Study.Orthopaedic journal of sports medicine · 2018Article
- Rock Climbing, Risk, and Recognition.Frontiers in psychology · 2018Article
- To be active through indoor-climbing: an exploratory feasibility study in a group of children with cerebral palsy and typically developing children.BMC neurology · 2017Article
- Injuries in extreme sports.Journal of orthopaedic surgery and research · 2017Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Rock and ice climbing are widely considered to be 'high-risk' sporting activities that are associated with a high incidence of severe injury and even death, compared with more mainstream sports. However, objective scientific data to support this perception are questionable. Accordingly, >400 sport-specific injury studies were analysed and compared by quantifying the injury incidence and objectively grading the injury severity (using the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics score) per 1000 hours of sporting participation. Fatalities were also analysed. The analysis revealed that fatalities occurred in all sports, but it was not always clear whether the sport itself or pre-existing health conditions contributed or caused the deaths. Bouldering (ropeless climbing to low heights), sport climbing (mostly bolt protected lead climbing with little objective danger) and indoor climbing (climbing indoors on artificial rock structures), showed a small injury rate, minor injury severity and few fatalities. As more objective/external dangers exist for alpine and ice climbing, the injury rate, injury severity and fatality were all higher. Overall, climbing sports had a lower injury incidence and severity score than many popular sports, including basketball, sailing or soccer; indoor climbing ranked the lowest in terms of injuries of all sports assessed. Nevertheless, a fatality risk remains, especially in alpine and ice climbing. In the absence of a standard definition for a 'high-risk' sport, categorizing climbing as a high-risk sport was found to be either subjective or dependent on the definition used. In conclusion, this analysis showed that retrospective data on sport-specific injuries and fatalities are not reported in a standardized manner. To improve preventative injury measures for climbing sports, it is recommended that a standardized, robust and comprehensive sport-specific scoring model should be developed to report and fully evaluate the injury risk, severity of injuries and fatality risk in climbing sports.
Indexed as
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.