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Offered Support and Knowledge about the Menstrual Cycle in the Athletic Community: A Cross-Sectional Study of 1086 Female Athletes

Many female athletes perceive that symptoms related to the menstrual cycle such as dysmenorrhea, premenstrual symptoms, amenorrhea or side-effects of hormonal contraceptives negatively impact their training, performance, and general well-being. Knowledge and communication about female athletes’ heal...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: von Rosen, Philip, Ekenros, Linda, Solli, Guro Strøm, Sandbakk, Øyvind, Holmberg, Hans-Christer, Hirschberg, Angelica Lindén, Fridén, Cecilia
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9564720/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36231231
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191911932
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author von Rosen, Philip
Ekenros, Linda
Solli, Guro Strøm
Sandbakk, Øyvind
Holmberg, Hans-Christer
Hirschberg, Angelica Lindén
Fridén, Cecilia
author_facet von Rosen, Philip
Ekenros, Linda
Solli, Guro Strøm
Sandbakk, Øyvind
Holmberg, Hans-Christer
Hirschberg, Angelica Lindén
Fridén, Cecilia
author_sort von Rosen, Philip
collection PubMed
description Many female athletes perceive that symptoms related to the menstrual cycle such as dysmenorrhea, premenstrual symptoms, amenorrhea or side-effects of hormonal contraceptives negatively impact their training, performance, and general well-being. Knowledge and communication about female athletes’ health is therefore important in the sport community. The aims of this study were to explore the level of knowledge and communication about menstrual cycle issues and use of hormonal contraceptives in the athletic community and to describe the kinds of medical support offered to female athletes. A total of 1086 Swedish and Norwegian athletes from 57 different sports responded to a web-based questionnaire. Of these, 58% (n = 627) practiced team sports and 42% (n = 459) individual sports. Twenty-six percent (n = 278) of the athletes perceived their knowledge about female athlete health to be poor/very poor and the knowledge was most often acquired from medical staff. Fifty-three percent (n = 572) of the athletes perceived the knowledge acquired of their coaches as poor/very poor, even though a significantly (p < 0.001) higher proportion of athletes with a female coach (30%, n = 31) rated their coach’s knowledge as very good/good, compared to athletes with a male coach (5%, n = 31). Only 11% (n = 116) of the athletes discussed female health issues with their coach. The majority (81%, n = 842) of the athletes partly to strongly agreed that female athlete health is considered a taboo topic in the athletic community. Forty-seven percent (n = 510) of the athletes had access to a physiotherapist, while only three percent (n = 29) had access to a gynecologist. Low perceived knowledge, lack of communication and support demonstrate the need for a multi-professional medical team and enhanced educational efforts focused on female athlete health in the athletic community.
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spelling pubmed-95647202022-10-15 Offered Support and Knowledge about the Menstrual Cycle in the Athletic Community: A Cross-Sectional Study of 1086 Female Athletes von Rosen, Philip Ekenros, Linda Solli, Guro Strøm Sandbakk, Øyvind Holmberg, Hans-Christer Hirschberg, Angelica Lindén Fridén, Cecilia Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Many female athletes perceive that symptoms related to the menstrual cycle such as dysmenorrhea, premenstrual symptoms, amenorrhea or side-effects of hormonal contraceptives negatively impact their training, performance, and general well-being. Knowledge and communication about female athletes’ health is therefore important in the sport community. The aims of this study were to explore the level of knowledge and communication about menstrual cycle issues and use of hormonal contraceptives in the athletic community and to describe the kinds of medical support offered to female athletes. A total of 1086 Swedish and Norwegian athletes from 57 different sports responded to a web-based questionnaire. Of these, 58% (n = 627) practiced team sports and 42% (n = 459) individual sports. Twenty-six percent (n = 278) of the athletes perceived their knowledge about female athlete health to be poor/very poor and the knowledge was most often acquired from medical staff. Fifty-three percent (n = 572) of the athletes perceived the knowledge acquired of their coaches as poor/very poor, even though a significantly (p < 0.001) higher proportion of athletes with a female coach (30%, n = 31) rated their coach’s knowledge as very good/good, compared to athletes with a male coach (5%, n = 31). Only 11% (n = 116) of the athletes discussed female health issues with their coach. The majority (81%, n = 842) of the athletes partly to strongly agreed that female athlete health is considered a taboo topic in the athletic community. Forty-seven percent (n = 510) of the athletes had access to a physiotherapist, while only three percent (n = 29) had access to a gynecologist. Low perceived knowledge, lack of communication and support demonstrate the need for a multi-professional medical team and enhanced educational efforts focused on female athlete health in the athletic community. MDPI 2022-09-21 /pmc/articles/PMC9564720/ /pubmed/36231231 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191911932 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
von Rosen, Philip
Ekenros, Linda
Solli, Guro Strøm
Sandbakk, Øyvind
Holmberg, Hans-Christer
Hirschberg, Angelica Lindén
Fridén, Cecilia
Offered Support and Knowledge about the Menstrual Cycle in the Athletic Community: A Cross-Sectional Study of 1086 Female Athletes
title Offered Support and Knowledge about the Menstrual Cycle in the Athletic Community: A Cross-Sectional Study of 1086 Female Athletes
title_full Offered Support and Knowledge about the Menstrual Cycle in the Athletic Community: A Cross-Sectional Study of 1086 Female Athletes
title_fullStr Offered Support and Knowledge about the Menstrual Cycle in the Athletic Community: A Cross-Sectional Study of 1086 Female Athletes
title_full_unstemmed Offered Support and Knowledge about the Menstrual Cycle in the Athletic Community: A Cross-Sectional Study of 1086 Female Athletes
title_short Offered Support and Knowledge about the Menstrual Cycle in the Athletic Community: A Cross-Sectional Study of 1086 Female Athletes
title_sort offered support and knowledge about the menstrual cycle in the athletic community: a cross-sectional study of 1086 female athletes
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9564720/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36231231
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191911932
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