Cardiovascular preparticipation screening practices of college team physicians

Determine the cardiovascular screening practices of college team physicians.

Cross-sectional survey.

Electronic mail with a link to a 9-item survey.

American Medical Society for Sports Medicine college team physicians.

Screening practices survey administered to college team physicians.

Cardiovascular preparticipation screening practices including noninvasive cardiac screening (NICS) such as electrocardiogram (ECG) or echocardiogram.

Two hundred twenty-four of 613 AMSSM members identifying themselves as college team physicians (36.5%) responded: National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I: 146, Division II: 41, Division III: 27, National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics: 8, and Junior College: 2. The majority (78%) of schools conducted the American Heart Association (AHA) 12-element history and physical examination. Division I institutions were more likely to add an ECG and/or echocardiogram (30%) to their preparticipation examination (PPE) compared with lower divisions (P < 0.0001). Those Division I schools using NICS were more likely to do so for all athletes (P < 0.001) or revenue generating sports (P < 0.001), whereas other institutions did so only for high-risk subgroups (P < 0.01). Lower division schools would consider adding ECG if it cost less (P = 0.01) or if there were more local expertise in athlete-specific interpretation standards (P = 0.04).

Many National Collegiate Athletic Association Athletes Division I programs already use NICS to screen athletes, whereas a significant portion of lower division schools add ECG for athletes deemed high risk. Increased use of these modalities suggests limitations of traditional PPE screening methods.

This is the first study to assess cardiac screening practices across all collegiate divisions and broadens our understanding of cardiac screening in high-level athletes.