A prospective study of type A behavior and running injuries.

A prospective study was developed to examine whether personality factors predispose runners to injury. Forty runners who completed a type A behavior screening were followed for 1 year during which they documented their training mileage, injuries, and time lost from training because of injury. Runners with high scores on the type A behavior screening questionnaire experienced significantly more injuries, especially multiple injuries. Although not significant, high scorers lost nearly twice as much training time because of injury. No significant relationship was found between mileage and injury. The data suggest that a type A behavior score warrants consideration as a predictive risk factor when screening for potential running injuries.