Gathering data for my thesis on climbing injuries!!

Hi all I’m a graduate student at UNR getting my masters in nursing. I’m doing my thesis on climbing injuries, and am trying to gather as much data as possible. I’ve attached the flyer I made so you can read a little more about it! And included the survey link, thank you and happy climbing!!

https://unr.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5uvvdxh8Bd2Gm6q

Had an elbow dislocation but there was no “dislocation” option… so I answered “other”. Maybe add that option? Good luck with your work!

Russ Walling,

Thank you for that less than constructive feedback. Unfortunately, I had to use the survey tool the university works with which would not allow me to differentiate every single body part; which is what I had in my original plan when putting the survey together. I’m really trying to create a generalized database of injuries, specific mostly to environment and style of climbing and whether medical attention was received. There is really no use in you being negative and rude about it, I mean really what purpose is that actually serving? 

Hey there! Just a heads up when I clicked "No" for the question "Have you ever sustained a climbing injury?" it says "Validation failed" and then won't let me proceed. Might just be my old laptop but there might be some glitch to work out. Best of luck!

When I see these surveys, I often think that the student would be better served if they released a beta version and asked people to look at format and questions and give feedback - before publishing the survey for real data collection.

One thing you seem to be interested in is how often people need to seek medical attention. What isn’t allowed for is how many people would have sought medical attention if they had insurance coverage, or insurance coverage with a low deductible plan. When you are surveying a climber population, that is a significant factor and affects the interpretation of the data you are collecting.

Another thing I find problematic with your survey is that climbing accidents often have numerous distinct injuries/ body parts affected. Your format does not allow for that. For example I had one accident that resulted in left ankle, right ankle, right butt soft tissue, left hand soft tissue and broken tailbone. How does one deal with that in your format?  

I am trying to be constructive. I am a former biological scientist myself. I gave up on the survey after looking at the first two pages…

I love surveys!!!! Keep it comin

Hi Lindsay,

That is not a glitch, the survey is only for folks who’ve had an injury:/  Thanks for checking it out though!

No option for TBI&open_fractures&frostbite?

No back button to add injuries I only remembered when moving on to the next page about ER visits?

No ability to review the injuries so I can give a proper tally for the ER/UC/PCR questions?

Sorry, but I'm leaving the survey incomplete, as of now.  Now that I know what the survey looks like, I'll write things down, and then try to fill it out more completely in another go around.

Great News:  Embarrassingly enough, I already have a big photo compilation of all the injuries I've seen out in the field, and not just mine - I kind of forgot about that.  Might be the TBI.  Might be old age.  Who knows.

Bad News:  It won't let me restart the survey.  Perhaps I can complete the survey on some other device of mine?

Painful truth:  I'll probably forget about this survey.  Sorry.

What if you had a BackStepping injury, Is that in there ???

phylp phylpwrote:

When I see these surveys, I often think that the student would be better served if they released a beta version and asked people to look at format and questions and give feedback - before publishing the survey for real data collection.

One thing you seem to be interested in is how often people need to seek medical attention. What isn’t allowed for is how many people would have sought medical attention if they had insurance coverage, or insurance coverage with a low deductible plan. When you are surveying a climber population, that is a significant factor and affects the interpretation of the data you are collecting.

Another thing I find problematic with your survey is that climbing accidents often have numerous distinct injuries/ body parts affected. Your format does not allow for that. For example I had one accident that resulted in left ankle, right ankle, right butt soft tissue, left hand soft tissue and broken tailbone. How does one deal with that in your format?  

I am trying to be constructive. I am a former biological scientist myself. I gave up on the survey after looking at the first two pages…

I think phylp phylp’s suggestions here are very good. Especially the idea of an initial beta version. I also like the perspective on the insurance situation. Others have also chimed in with some possible improvements. (Ignore the haters.) More heads are better than one, as they say, and getting feedback from your target population before releasing a final version of the survey isn’t a bad idea. Once again, best of luck. If you do end up with an updated survey, I’ll gladly take it again. 

phylp phylpwrote:

When I see these surveys, I often think that the student would be better served if they released a beta version and asked people to look at format and questions and give feedback - before publishing the survey for real data collection.

One thing you seem to be interested in is how often people need to seek medical attention. What isn’t allowed for is how many people would have sought medical attention if they had insurance coverage, or insurance coverage with a low deductible plan. When you are surveying a climber population, that is a significant factor and affects the interpretation of the data you are collecting.

Another thing I find problematic with your survey is that climbing accidents often have numerous distinct injuries/ body parts affected. Your format does not allow for that. For example I had one accident that resulted in left ankle, right ankle, right butt soft tissue, left hand soft tissue and broken tailbone. How does one deal with that in your format?  

I am trying to be constructive. I am a former biological scientist myself. I gave up on the survey after looking at the first two pages…

Hi phylp phylp,

Thank you for your feedback, unfortunately because I had to use the survey tool the university wanted me to use it kind of forced me to slim down the amount of options I could include for injuries:/ I did send the survey out as a pilot to quite a few climbers who all gave me feedback which I adjusted on the survey accordingly. Thinking about it now I should have posted the pilot survey here and gotten more feedback because there are a lot of good points here. As far as the insurance portion goes there is the option at the end where it asks if the climber “didn't seek medical attention why not,” with a free text box. My assumption was there would be a lot of people without or with minimal insurance who could notate that here.  It’s my first go at creating a rivet to collect data, I will take your suggestions into consideration for further research. 

I'm confused by all the alleged Guideline #1 violations.  As a longtime woman (71.6 years and counting), I'd like to put forth the idea that women posters are not fragile flowers that need to be protected from a few harsh words.  I didn't see anything in Russ' original post that was jerk-like.  Blunt and critical but pretty mild as these things go. What came across was his frustration. The OP pushed back at him and that's great too.  Nothing happening on this thread even remotely approaches the nastiness I've seen on other threads.