‘The Little Engine That Could’: A Qualitative Study of Medical Service Access and Effectiveness among Adolescent Athletics Athletes Competing at the Highest International Level

Toomas Timpka, Kristina Fagher, Victor Bargoria, Håkan Gauffin, Christer Andersson, Jenny Jacobsson, James Nyce and Stéphane Bermon
Additional contact information
Toomas Timpka: Athletics Research Center, Linköping University, 58183 Linköping, Sweden
Kristina Fagher: Athletics Research Center, Linköping University, 58183 Linköping, Sweden
Victor Bargoria: Athletics Research Center, Linköping University, 58183 Linköping, Sweden
Håkan Gauffin: Athletics Research Center, Linköping University, 58183 Linköping, Sweden
Christer Andersson: Athletics Research Center, Linköping University, 58183 Linköping, Sweden
Jenny Jacobsson: Athletics Research Center, Linköping University, 58183 Linköping, Sweden
James Nyce: Athletics Research Center, Linköping University, 58183 Linköping, Sweden
Stéphane Bermon: Health and Science Department, World Athletics, MC 98007 Monte-Carlo, Monaco

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 14, 1-12

Abstract: Little is known about provision of medical services to adolescents prior to participating in international top-level sports. This study aimed to investigate experiences of medical service provision among high-level adolescent athletics (track and field) athletes from three continents. A thematic narrative analysis was applied to data collected from 14 athletes by semi-structured interviews. Although competing at the highest international level, these adolescent athletes had difficulties making sense of symptoms of ill health, especially on their own. With increasing exercise loads, the athletes’ medical support needs had extended beyond the capacity of parents and local communities. As there was no organized transfer of the responsibility for medical support to sports organizations, the athletes often had to manage their health problems by themselves. There were major variations among the adolescent athletes with regards to medical service access and quality. The services used ranged from sophisticated computer-assisted biomechanical analyses to traditional healers. Decreased exercise load was the common sports injury treatment. The results of this study demonstrate how the ethical standards underpinning youth sports as well as the equal provision of medical services to adolescents are challenged across the world. Further research on health service provision to adolescent top-level athletes is warranted.

Keywords: public health; adolescents; health systems; equity in health; athletics (track and field); qualitative research methods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/14/7278/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/14/7278/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:14:p:7278-:d:590126

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().