The VISA-C Questionnaire: A Self-Administered Assessment to Measure Finger/Hand/Wrist Pain in Climbers.

Abstract

Background: Rock climbing places high loads through the hands, wrists, and fingers, leading to high injury rates, with the highest proportion in the fingers. Until now, there has been no attempt to categorize pain in the forearm to assess readiness to train. The purpose of this study was to create a questionnaire, the VISA-C (Victorian Institute of Sports-like Assessment; C for climbing), to measure forearm pain and determine how pain limits training.

Methods: We asked rock climbers aged 18 to 50 years old, who met the participation criteria and gave consent, to complete a survey containing 8 questions. We analyzed data from climbers who responded to the online questionnaire in the 9-week period between November 5, 2024, and January 8, 2025. We obtained a diverse international sample with English-speaking respondents from 54 countries. We included a supplementary questionnaire to compare the survey results against participant demographics, lifestyle, health, and sport-specific history and habits.

Results: We analyzed data from 1,110 climbers who completed the form. VISA-C scores were significantly different as a function of pain. The mean VISA-C score of the group with no pain was the highest (83.21/100), lower in the group reporting some pain (72.28/100), and lowest in the most severe group with activity-limiting pain (60.05/100), indicating our questionnaire scales with pain severity. We then used the secondary data gathered on our participants to search for associations between pain or skill level and demographic, health, and training habits. Of these, only blood pressure was associated with differences in VISA-C scores.

Conclusions: VISA-C score scaled with pain and can be compared broadly across all major demographics. We observed interesting trends in our secondary analyses. Several variables correlated significantly with either VISA-C score or climbing skill level, but none correlated well with both. Many of the variables we compared agreed with existing literature or pointed to novel associations that warrant more investigation.