Influence of preseason training, fitness, and existing injury on subsequent rugby injury.

Objectives: To examine the influence of preseason fitness, existing injury, and preseason rugby training on subsequent injury.

Methods: Players were eligible for the survey if they were a member of a Scottish Rugby Union (SRU) affiliated rugby club in the Border Reivers District of the SRU during the 1997-1998 season. A total of 803 (84%) players from 22 (88%) participating clubs provided details of rugby training, injuries sustained, and physical activity undertaken during the 16 week summer period (26 April to 16 August 1997) and their perceived fitness before the start of the season.

Influence of rugby injuries on players' subsequent health and lifestyle: beginning a long term follow up.

Objectives: To describe the current rugby playing status of a cohort of 1,169 men who had previously participated in an epidemiological survey of rugby injuries during the 1993-1994 season, and assess the consequences of rugby injuries sustained.

Methods: In May 1998, 911 (78%) men completed a questionnaire reporting their current involvement in rugby and the influence that the 324 (71%) injuries they had sustained four years earlier had since had on their health and wellbeing.

Results: The most common reasons given by the 390 (43%) ex-players for ceasing to play rugby were family (10%), employment (25%), and an injury sustained while playing rugby (26%), 80% of which were dislocations, strains, and sprains, mainly to the knee (35%), back (14%), and shoulder (9%).

Impact of professionalism on injuries in rugby union.

Objectives: To measure the frequency and nature of injuries occurring in competitive matches since professionalism was introduced in rugby union.

Methods: The cohort study previously conducted in players from senior rugby clubs in the Scottish Borders in 1993-1994 when rugby union was an entirely amateur sport was repeated in 1997-1998. The same injury definition, outcome criteria, and method of calculating playing hours were used.

The influence of environmental factors on rugby football injuries.

The aim of this study was to establish the influence of weather and pitch conditions on the frequency and nature of rugby injuries. Observers at 26 senior rugby clubs in the Borders District of the Scottish Rugby Union reported all injuries to 1169 (96%) registered players at Saturday home and away matches during the 1993-94 season (August 1993 to April 1994). Weather and pitch conditions at 112 grounds were recorded on 605 occasions; 1268 Borders teams played at these grounds, with 344 injury episodes being sustained.

Factors influencing tackle injuries in rugby union football.

Objectives: To assess the influence of selected aspects of lifestyle, personality, and other player related factors on injuries in the tackle. To describe the detailed circumstances in which these tackles occurred.

Methods: A prospective case-control study was undertaken in which the tackling and tackled players ("the cases") involved in a tackle injury were each matched with "control" players who held the same respective playing positions in the opposing teams.

The natural history of untreated lower urinary tract symptoms in middle-aged and elderly men over a period of five years.

Objectives: To describe changes in untreated lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS), levels of bothersomeness and interference in selected living activities arising from LUTS in a cohort of men followed up for a period of 5 years.

Methods: 1,994 men aged 40-79 years registered in four health centres in Scotland completed a urinary symptom questionnaire in the community. 1,177 (71% of original eligible participants) were followed up at 5 years.

Pathophysiological relationships between lower urinary tract symptoms and the prostate do not strengthen over time.

Background: The aim of this survey was to examine the relationships among baseline prostate gland volume and changes in urinary symptomatology 3 years later.

Methods: A Scottish community-based cohort of 193 men aged 40-79 years who had prostate volume measured by transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) were followed-up at 3 years.

Results: Only baseline nocturia correlated with prostate volume (r = 0.

Health-related quality of life associated with lower urinary tract symptoms in four countries.

Objectives: To describe health-related quality of life (HRQL) associated with lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) assessed by validated questionnaires in four countries.

Methods: More than 6000 men, recruited by using community- or population-based sampling in four countries, completed questionnaires soliciting information about urinary symptom frequency, bother, degree of interference with daily activities, and other measures of HRQL.

Results: In all countries, disease-specific HRQL worsened with increasing age.

Influence of players' physique on rugby football injuries.

Objectives: To determine whether there is an association between a player's physique and injuries incurred while playing rugby football.

Methods: A cohort study was carried out involving all senior rugby clubs in the Scottish Borders during the 1993-1994 rugby season. Somatotype estimates were determined for 1152 (95%) of the 1216 eligible players.

Correlation between prostate size estimated by digital rectal examination and measured by transrectal ultrasound.

Objectives: To correlate prostate size estimates performed by single or multiple examiners through digital rectal examination (DRE) with volume measured by transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) and to propose measures for predicting prostate volume using DRE estimates in clinical settings.

Methods: Data from four sources were analyzed: (1) the Olmsted County community study of 397 patients examined by a single urology nurse, with TRUS measurements done by multiple examiners; (2) a community study in Stirling, Scotland, involving 480 patients with DRE and TRUS performed by one urologist; (3) baseline data from the Veterans Affairs Cooperative Study No. 359 in 1222 patients with DRE and TRUS measurements by multiple personnel at 31 centers; and (4) a clinical series of 100 men with DRE and TRUS by a single urologist.

Epidemiological comparison of injuries in school and senior club rugby.

Objective: To determine the frequency, nature, circumstances, and outcome of schoolboy rugby injuries and to compare these injuries with those occurring in senior rugby clubs.

Methods: The study was a prospective cohort study, conducted on 1705 (98%) of 1736 eligible players from nine Edinburgh schools and 1169 (96%) of 1216 eligible players from all 26 senior Scottish Rugby Union clubs (South District) who provided personal details before the 1993-1994 rugby season. Adult linkpersons were appointed to notify the circumstances of all injury episodes occurring in matches or in rugby related training.

Perceptions of urinary symptoms and health-care-seeking behaviour amongst men aged 40-79 years.

Background: Little is known about why men fail to seek medical help for urological symptoms.

Aim: This study was designed to document men's perceptions of urinary symptoms and to increase understanding of health-care-seeking behaviour.

Method: A stratified random sample of men aged 40-79 years was drawn from the age-sex register of a health centre in Central Scotland.

Three-year follow-up of a community-based cohort of men with untreated benign prostatic hyperplasia.

Objective: To describe changes over 3 years in urinary symptom severity and bothersomeness and in interference caused by symptoms in selected everyday activities in a cohort of men with untreated benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH).

Methods: A prospective study of a community-based cohort of 217 men from Forth Valley, Scotland, which satisfied a working clinical definition of symptomatic BPH and had not received treatment, were followed up at 1 and 3 years.

Results: Significant increases occurred in both mean symptom and bothersome levels for nocturia, urgency, dribbling, intermittency and incomplete emptying.

Regression to the mean occurs in measuring peak urinary flow.

Objective: To investigate the anomalous rises in maximum urinary flow rates seen in a prostate-diagnostic clinic.

Subjects And Methods: The study comprised 1994 men aged 40-79 years registered at five health centres in Central Scotland, participating in a study of the natural history of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), who completed a urodynamic assessment on up to three occasions: in the community, on referral to a prostate-diagnostic clinic and at a one-year follow-up.

Results: Subjects referred to the diagnostic clinic on the basis of maximum flow rate (Qmax < 15 mL/s) and/or urinary symptomatology showed a mean increase in Qmax (P < 0.

Reproducibility and observer variability of transrectal ultrasound measurements of prostatic volume.

Transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) is an established investigation in benign and malignant prostatic disease though the level of reproducibility of TRUS volume measurements is not known. A group of observers in the UK and the USA who were participating in linked prospective studies of benign prostatic hyperplasia each carried out measurements during real-time scanning and on a series of static TRUS images. Results demonstrated good reproducibility for measurements of antero-posterior, transverse, and longitudinal dimensions of the prostate by an experienced UK urologist; only a minor degree of interobserver variation occurred in measurements made between experienced UK and USA observers.

Consultation patterns in a community survey of men with benign prostatic hyperplasia.

Background: The Stirling benign prostatic hyperplasia natural history group have previously reported a prevalence of this condition of 255 per 1000 in a community study of 1610 men aged 40-79 years.

Aim: It was decided to examine the consultation patterns of men with benign prostatic hyperplasia in greater detail.

Method: All participating men were invited to complete a previously validated lifestyle questionnaire including questions on consultations with their general practitioner during the previous year and previous history of prostatic problems.

Prostatism and the burden of benign prostatic hyperplasia on elderly men.

All men aged 40-79 years registered with two group general practices in Central Scotland were enumerated. Four hundred and ten men (249 in the working age group 40-64 years and 161 in retirement ages 65-79 years satisfied predetermined criteria for clinical benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) of prostatic weight > 20 g in the presence of urinary dysfunction and without evidence of malignancy. Despite a higher prevalence of BPH among the retirement group (428/1000) compared with men of working ages (202/1000), there were virtually no statistically significant differences between the two groups in terms of annoyance and interference in daily living activities caused by urinary dysfunction, frequency of urinary symptoms, or medical consultations for BPH.

Use of a 7-day diary for urinary symptom recording.

A cohort of 254 men, aged 40-79 years, was followed up at 1 year in a community-based survey of benign prostatic hyperplasia. Immediately after completing a questionnaire about the occurrence of 12 urinary symptoms over the previous month, the men were invited to keep a prospective diary asking about the same symptoms over 7 consecutive days in order to assess the amount of day-to-day variation in symptoms and to examine to what extent the findings reflected those of the retrospective questionnaire. The majority of men reported minor degrees of daily fluctuations in symptoms.

Similar levels of urological symptoms have similar impact on Scottish and American men--although Scots report less symptoms.

Urinary symptoms and the extent to which they interfere with living activities were compared in 2 community-based investigations that enrolled men 40 to 79 years old who were randomly sampled from Olmsted County, Minnesota (2,119) and the Forth Valley of Scotland (1,385). Both investigations included symptom questions with wording that is nearly identical to that of the American Urological Association (AUA) symptom index. Following AUA scoring conventions we grouped scores into mild (AUA score 0 to 7), moderate (score 8 to 19) and severe (score 20+) categories.

Prostatic surgery for benign prostatic hyperplasia: meeting the expanding demand.

We describe changes in the pattern of surgery for benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) in Scotland between 1971 and 1989. The data are based on an analysis of routinely collected Scottish hospital in-patient statistics for primary prostatic operations on men with a diagnosis of BPH (ICD Code 600.0).

Impact of previously unrecognized benign prostatic hyperplasia on the daily activities of middle-aged and elderly men.

To assess the importance of benign prostatic hyperplasia on activities of daily living, a cross-sectional survey of 1627 men aged 40-79 years (representing a 65% response rate) registered with two health centres in central Scotland was carried out, using a urinary symptom questionnaire and uroflowmetry to identify men more likely to have benign prostatic hyperplasia. The condition was defined as a prostate gland of more than 20 g in the presence of symptoms of urinary dysfunction and/or a peak flow rate of less than 15 ml s-1, without evidence of malignancy. Transrectal ultrasonography was used to measure the volume (and by inference weight) of prostate glands.

Impact of benign prostatic hyperplasia on general well-being of men.

Little is known about the impact of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) on the general well-being of men with this condition. All men aged 40-79 years registered with a group general practice were enumerated. BPH was defined as enlargement of the prostate gland of equivalent weight > 20 g in the presence of symptoms of urinary dysfunction and/or a urinary peak flow rate < 15 ml/s, without evidence of malignancy.

Follow-up of a cohort of men with untreated benign prostatic hyperplasia.

A cohort of 266 men with untreated benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) identified in a community-based survey were followed for a period of 1 year. Although the overall prevalence of urinary symptoms increased during the year, substantial within-subject variation in urinary symptomatology occurred, with up to a quarter of men reporting urgency and dribbling to have improved whilst one third of men reported other urinary symptoms to have deteriorated. Levels of bothersomeness caused by urinary symptoms did not show much change during the period of follow-up.