Screening for Heart Disease in Athletes by Sports Physical Therapists and Athletic Trainers:

0732 PURPOSE: Although rare, sudden cardiac death (SCD) due to undetected heart disease in an athlete is a community tragedy. Physical therapists (PTs) and certified athletic trainers (ATCs) often work closely with athletes and may help detect unsuspected heart disease in patients if they perform a thorough cardiovascular screening. We hypothesized that ATCs and PTs may not perform a thorough cardiovascular screening of their patient-athletes because they lack knowledge about the primary causes of SCD. METHODS: Subjects were licensed ATCs and PTs who were registered with the National Athletic Trainers Association (NATA) or members of the Sports Physical Therapy Section (SPTS) of the American Physical Therapy Association, respectively. We used a stratified-sampling technique, based on a percentage of PTs by state and ATCs by district, to survey NATA and SPTS members via email and regular mail. Subjects were asked how often (% time, from 0–100%) they performed each of 13 screening items (based on the American Heart Association's (AHA) recommendations for screening athletes for heart disease). Subjects also answered questions about the primary causes of SCD in younger (<35 years) and older (> or = 35 years) athletes. Analyses: Relationship between mean screening score and knowledge of cause of SCD was based on Person's correlation with an alpha level of 0.05 as the criteria for significance RESULTS: Both ATCs and PTs inquired about a past medical history of heart disease and hypertension and required parental verification of the past medical history more than 50% of the time. However, both groups failed to screen for several items identified by the AHA, such as auscultating the heart for murmur or arrhythmia, measuring the blood pressure and inquiring about a history of Marfan's syndrome more than 50% of the time. Both ATCs and PT were knowledgeable about the causes of SCD (>50% answered correctly), but there was no significant relationship between the score on the screening questionnaire and knowledge of causes of SCD (P = 0.32) for either group. CONCLUSIONS: ATCs and PTs who work with athletes are not consistently screening athletes for risk of SCD, despite knowledge about these conditions.