Risk of infectious mononucleosis among agonistic swimmers: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: The risk of infectious mononucleosis among athletes is quite debated. Some personal observations seem to suggest an increase risk of mononucleosis among athletes, because they attend always close settings with an high probability of respiratory pathogens transmission; overtraining has been also proposed as risk factor. STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional study in a group of swimmers (aged 11-14 years) of the University Sport Centre of Bari. METHODS: 40 swimmers were interviewed by healthcare personnel at the end of training courses; demographic characteristics, personal habits, information about sport training and diagnosis of mononucleosis were analysed. RESULTS: The life-time incidence of mononucleosis was around 40%; multivariate analysis showed the association between mononucleosis and use of bottles of other persons (aOR=8.2; 95% CI=1.4-49.2; z=2.32; p=0.021) and average duration of training session was longer among subjects who reported mononucleosis than in subjects who did not indicate this disease. CONCLUSIONS: Future multi-centric studies are needed to better define the epidemiology of the mononucleosis in sport settings and to formulate appropriate recommendations to prevent the spreading of this disease.