What would runners like to know about running-related themes? A participant involvement study

BACKGROUND: Participation of end-users in healthcare aids in understanding the most important needs with the ultimate aim to improve healthcare. Running is an increasingly popular sport that is performed by many individuals all over the world. While running-related research in healthcare is increasing, there is lacking information about the preferences of runners. The primary objective of this study was to assess the percentage of runners that have running-related questions. The secondary objective was to assess the most prevalent themes of these running-related questions. METHODS: Participants of the 2019 Rotterdam Marathon event were invited to complete an online questionnaire. Respondents completed pre-selected running-related healthcare themes of their interest (prevention and treatment of running related injuries, fluid intake, nutrition, emergency care during running events, body temperature, gastrointestinal complaints, exercise-associated muscle cramps, materials and mental aspects of endurance running). An open text field allowed the participants to indicate other running-related subjects of interest. RESULTS: Two thousand and one hundred seventy of the 5236 invited participants (41% response rate) completed the questionnaire. 81% had questions about at least one theme, with nutrition (46%), injuries (35%) and hydration (32%) as most frequently selected topics. 35% completed the open text field, with optimizing training load as most frequently reported theme (8%). CONCLUSIONS: 4 out of 5 runners had running-related questions. The findings of our study indicate that there is a great demand for more evidence-based information and they aid healthcare professionals in understanding which information should be provided to runners. These data can also be used to prioritize future research projects.