Willems T.M.1, Roosen P.1
1Ghent University, Department of Rehabilitation Sciences and Physical Therapy, Ghent, Belgium
Background: When buying footwear, customers rely on certain criteria to choose. Additionally, the customer is influenced by several other factors such as brand, product characteristics, quality and price. Runners and walkers, however, often suffer from lower extremity injuries. Although that the aetiology of these injuries is multifactorial, little is known about the relationship between the consumer behaviour towards footwear and the development of those injuries.
Purpose: The purpose of this investigation was to investigate if consumer behaviour towards footwear is a risk factor for lower extremity injuries.
Methods: The consumer behaviour towards running/walking footwear was investigated in 300 runners and 280 walkers through a baseline questionnaire which included 28 questions concerning basic decisions like reason and place of acquisition, whether or not undergoing a gait analysis, price, influence of advice and impulsiveness and influencing factors like colour, model, material, closure mechanism, etc. A 2-weekly questionnaire was used to obtain information on injuries during the following 24 weeks. A running or walking injury was defined as a self-reported injury on muscles, joints, tendons and/or bones of the lower extremities that the participant attributed to running or walking. The problem had to be severe enough to cause a reduction in the distance, speed, duration or frequency of running/walking or treatment of the injury was carried out. Binary logistic regression analysis was used to identify risk factors for lower extremity injuries in the consumer behaviour.
Results: Data of 104 walkers and 104 runners who responded to all injury-questionnaires and who did not change footwear during the follow-up period was used for further analysis. 49 (24%) subjects suffered a self-reported lower extremity injury. 35 injuries occurred in runners and 14 among the walkers. A gait analysis before buying footwear, not caring for the model or the closure mechanism of the shoe and feeling very much concerned about price-quality ratio were risk factors for lower extremity injuries. Buying shoes specific for the requested sport activity and buying the correct size decreased the risk.
Conclusion(s): Buying footwear after a gait analysis increased the risk for a lower extremity injury in runners and walkers. Runners and walkers should pay attention to the model, the sport specificity, the closure mechanism and the correct size when buying footwear.
Implications: Runners might think that after a gait analysis, they are protected against injuries but the contrary is true. A possible explanation might be that they presume to have the perfect shoes with optimal protection against injuries after such an analysis. Consequently, they become unconsciously imprudent and take more risks. Another explanation might be that those subjects who have an injury history are more likely to undergo a gait analysis, hoping not to develop any further injuries by procuring individually adapted shoes. But in fact, they have a higher risk of developing another injury because injury history is the most predisposing factor for a new injury.
Since consumer behaviour towards footwear is a risk factor for lower extremity injuries, physical therapists and other medically trained co-workers might assist runners/walkers in buying correct footwear to prevent these injuries.
Funding acknowledgements: No funding was received for this study
Topic: Sport & sports injuries
Ethics approval: This study was accepted by the Ethical Committee of the Ghent University Hospital
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
