Self-reported versus diagnosed stress fractures in Norwegian female elite athletes

The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of selfreportedversus diagnosed stress fractures in female elite athletesand non-athletic controls. a random sample of norwegian eliteathletes from the national teams, aged 13-39 years (n = 186) anda random sample of non-athletic controls (n = 145) in the sameage group participated in the study. the athletes represented ajunior- or senior team, or a recruiting squad for one of theseteams, in one of 46 different sports/events. a higher percentageof athletes self-reported stress fractures (14.0%) compared tothose diagnosed with stress fractures (8.1%) (p < 0.001). sixcontrols self-reported stress fractures, but none of them werediagnosed with stress fractures. these results indicate that selfreportingof stress fractures has low validity. this finding hasimportant implications for further research on stress fractures inathletes.