Korean J Sports Med.  2024 Jun;42(2):99-104. 10.5763/kjsm.2024.42.2.99.

Infectious Skin Diseases of Korean National Wrestlers: A Cross-sectional Observational Study

• Choung Y
• Oh B
• Kim J
• Lim Js
• Han S
• Shin E
• Yoon J
• Bae M
• Ryu JK

• KMID: 2556274
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.5763/kjsm.2024.42.2.99

Abstract

Purpose
Wrestlers have a lot of direct skin-to-skin contact between wrestlers during matches, and many studies show that wrestlers are vulnerable to the spread of skin infections. However, there have been few studies on skin infections in Korean wrestlers. The purpose of this study was to compare the characteristics of skin diseases in wrestlers and other athletes.
Methods
Athletes who visited for skin diseases in the Department of Family Medicine in the Jincheon National Training Center in 2018 were investigated. We calculated the duration of skin disease per training period (DSD/TP) as the number of visits×7 days×1,000/official training days. Athletes with a DSD/TP above the median value or equal to were defined as the high DSD/TP group, and the others were defined as the low DSD/TP group. A chi-square test was used to compare the odds ratio [OR] for these groups about infectious and noninfectious skin diseases.
Results
Thirty wrestlers and 89 other sports players visited the infirmary with skin diseases. The probability of belonging to the high DSD/TP group was significantly higher when the wrestlers visited for skin infections than the other athletes (OR, 7.714; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.699–22.048). However, there was no significant difference in noninfectious skin diseases between wrestling and other sports (OR, 0.569; 95% CI, 0.246–1.320).
Conclusion
This is the first study that shows Korean national wrestlers with skin diseases receive more treatment for infectious skin diseases than other sports. This study can provide important information on the prevention of wrestlers for skin infections.

Keyword

Infectious skin diseases; Communicable diseases; Wrestling; Athletes

Figure

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  Fig. 1 Patient flow diagram.

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