The Epidemiology Of Finger Injuries Among Recreational Rock Climbers

Over 10 million people in the US participated in rock climbing in 2021, which is twice as many as the participants in 2011, and the number is expected to increase with the growing number of indoor climbing gyms. The finger is the most commonly injured site in climbing. However, previous studies about finger injuries have primarily focused on high-level climbers. PURPOSE: To demonstrate the characteristics and risk factors for finger injuries in recreational climbers. METHODS: 293 recreational climbers (74 females; age: 29 ± 7 years, mass: 71 ± 12 kg, climbing years: 4.5 ± 3.2 years, climbing level: V4 ± V1 on the scale of V0 – V17) and 353 finger injuries were diagnosed at a physical therapy clinic between 2018 and 2023 and included for analysis. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the type and location of finger injuries. Multinomial logistic regressions were used to assess age, body mass, climbing years, and climbing level as predictors of finger injury type. RESULTS: The most common injury sites were the ring (50%) and middle (40%) fingers. The most common injury type was pulley injury (41%), with the majority located at the A2 pulley (63%) and A4 pulley (25%). Joint synovitis comprised 33% of all cases, and 91% of which affected the proximal interphalangeal (PIP) joint. Flexor tendon injury (22%) was the third most common injury type, and other injuries comprised 5% of all cases. Greater climbing ability increased the chance of having other injuries over tendon injury [odds ratio (OR) = 1.959, p = 0.007], pulley injury [odds ratio (OR) = 1.716, p = 0.02], and joint synovitis [OR = 1.671, p = 0.028]; greater body mass increased the chance of having pulley injury [OR = 1.075, p = 0.008] and tendon injury [OR = 1.074, p = 0.012] over other injuries. Age (p = 0.206) or climbing years (p = 0.999) did not predict injury type. CONCLUSION: This is the first study to investigate the occurrences and risk factors for finger injuries among recreational climbers. We demonstrated that pulley injury and joint synovitis are the most common complaints among recreational climbers. We also found a higher rate of PIP joint synovitis in our cohort compared to high-level climbers in the literature. These findings will help inform future education and training to prevent finger injuries among climbers.