There is a general lack of awareness regarding sickle cell trait in the field of athletics. While sickle cell trait is usually considered a benign condition, there have been reports of serious complications during extreme conditions (i.e. high altitude or hot temperatures) among competitive athletes. In June 2009, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) recommended that all of its student athletes determine their sickle cell trait status, if unknown.
Testing athletes for sickle cell trait has possible undesirable implications, such as stigmatization and discrimination against athletes with sickle cell trait. This project aimed to prevent these negative implications by developing a novel program to provide sickle cell education, testing, and pre/post-test counseling for students in collegiate athletic programs.
The Pediatric Sickle Cell Program at Childrens Hospital of Pittsburgh (CHP) collaborated with the University of Pittsburgh in July of 2009 to facilitate voluntary testing of student athletes for sickle cell trait. Our program provided pre-test counseling, testing within the
University of Pittsburghs athletic training facilities for each student athlete, and post-test counseling, regardless of trait status. We met with athletic department staff to provide sickle cell trait education, methods to prevent exercise-related sudden death, and emphasized the importance against stigmatizing student athletes with sickle cell trait.
Testing and education were received well by both coaches and athletes. In total, we tested 79 student athletes; two of which were found to have sickle cell trait. Our program in the future plans to work with the University of Pittsburgh Athletic Department again and expand testing protocols to other universities in the area. In addition, future studies will assess the student athletes experience during testing and reasons why some athletes chose not to be tested.
The public health significance of this project is two-fold: to create a testing protocol and educational plan that can be individualized for the needs of a university, while maintaining the autonomy and privacy of the student athletes, and ensuring beneficence and non-malfeasance. In addition, the project raised awareness of sickle cell trait in the field of athletics, which will prevent sudden death among otherwise healthy, young athletes.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-04072010-115005 |
| Date | 28 June 2010 |
| Creators | Aloe, Amy Elizabeth |
| Contributors | James Butler, Lakshmanan Krishnamurti, Elizabeth Gettig, Beth Kladny |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-04072010-115005/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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