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This study sought to develop and validate a questionnaire about violence experienced by children in sport. A convenience sample of 1055 French-Canadian athletes between 14 and 17 years old was recruited to participate in an online study assessing their experiences of interpersonal violence in sport. The Violence Toward Athletes Questionnaire (VTAQ) includes three subscales: athlete version (VTAQ-A), coach version (VTAQ-C), and parent version (VTAQ-P). Exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) was used to identify latent factors underlying versions of the VTAQ. The VTAQ-Athlete includes nine items with three factors: psychological (4 items), physical (2 items) and sexual (3 items). The VTAQ-Coach includes 36 items with three factors: psychological/neglect (16 items), physical (9 items) and sexual (11 items). The VTAQ-Parent includes 25 items with two factors: psychological/neglect (17 items) and physical (8 items). The VTAQ provides initial validation of the first measure by questioning children directly about their experiences of interpersonal violence in sport.

Coker-Cranney et al. (2018) recently stressed the need for the development and validation of a questionnaire that assesses a young athlete’s level of conformity to sport ethic norms. The objective of this study was to develop and begin an initial factor validation of the Conformity to the Sport Ethic Scale (CSES), a scale assessing the conformity of teenage athletes from all competition levels to these sport ethic norms. Following the steps suggested by DeVellis (2012) for scale development and validation, a convenience sample of 1096 French-Canadian athletes between 14 and 18 years and who participated in an organized sport were recruited to partake in an online study assessing their conformity to the sport ethic. The CSES was developed to include four dimensions based on the qualitative work of Hughes and Coakley (1991), namely, self-sacrifice, striving for distinction, accepting risks/playing through pain and refusing to accept limits. To identify latent factors underlying the CSES exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) was performed using Mplus version 8.0. The CSES includes 20 items in three factors: striving for distinction (6 items), self-sacrifice (4 items) and refusing to accept limits (10 items). The resulting factor structure was invariant between boys and girls. Internal consistency of these subscales was acceptable. All correlations between subscales were significant. This tool is the first step to measure conformity to the Sport Ethic norms and will allow for further research in this area.

Various forms of violence against youth are documented in sport. To date, young athletes’ perceptions of violence in sport remain relatively unstudied. The objective of this study was to examine how violence and its various manifestations in sport have been understood by young athletes. In total, 60 athletes from a variety of sports and ages (12–17 years old) participated in nine semi-structured focus groups. The interview data were submitted to a thematic analysis using NVivo. Results obtained showed that various motivations for participating in sport influenced the ways in which young athletes addressed violence in this context. Additionally, the findings showed that violence in sport is a concept that young athletes partially understand. Even if most of them described various forms of violence in sport, some forms were misunderstood or have not been addressed at all. Finally, young athletes provided their own explanations of this issue in sport. From their perspective, violence in sport can be seen as part of the sport, a strategy to achieve competitive success on the field, a protective mechanism or a result of the valorisation of violence in sport by peers, parents, coaches and sport organisations. Considering that some young athletes normalised violence in sport, it seems crucial to make prevention efforts targeting social norms in sport.

The skin is a dynamic tissue in which terminally differentiated keratinocytes are replaced by the proliferation of new epithelial cells that will undergo differentiation. The rapid and continual turnover of skin throughout life depends on a cell population with unique characteristics: the stem cells. These cells are relatively undifferentiated, retain a high capacity for self-renewal throughout their lifetime, have a large proliferative potential, and are normally slow cycling. The long-term regeneration of grafted cultured epidermis indicates that epidermal stem cells are maintained in cultures. In animals they can be identified with 3H-thymidine or bromodeoxyuridine based on their property of slow cycling. The development of markers such as keratin 19 also permits their study in human tissues. In this chapter, protocols to study skin stem cells using their property of slow cycling and their expression of keratin 19 will be described in detail. The methods include the double labeling of tissues for keratin 19 and label-retaining cells (autoradiography of 3H-thymidine) in situ. The labeling of keratin 19 by immunofluorescence of by flow cytometry is described for cells in vitro., 0

The aim of this study was to evaluate whether tissue-engineered skin produced in vitro was able to sustain growth of hair follicles in vitro and after grafting. Different tissues were designed. Dissociated newborn mouse keratinocytes or newborn mouse hair buds (HBs) were added onto dermal constructs consisting of a tissue-engineered cell-derived matrix elaborated from either newborn mouse or adult human fibroblasts cultured with ascorbic acid. After 7–21 days of maturation at the air–liquid interface, no hair was noticed in vitro. Epidermal differentiation was observed in all tissue-engineered skin. However, human fibroblast-derived tissue-engineered dermis (hD) promoted a thicker epidermis than mouse fibroblast-derived tissue-engineered dermis (mD). In association with mD, HBs developed epithelial cyst-like inclusions presenting outer root sheath-like attributes. In contrast, epidermoid cyst-like inclusions lined by a stratified squamous epithelium were present in tissues composed of HBs and hD. After grafting, pilo-sebaceous units formed and hair grew in skin elaborated from HBs cultured 10–26 days submerged in culture medium in association with mD. However, the number of normal hair follicles decreased with longer culture time. This hair-forming capacity after grafting was not observed in tissues composed of hD overlaid with HBs. These results demonstrate that epithelial stem cells can be kept in vitro in a permissive tissue-engineered dermal environment without losing their potential to induce hair growth after grafting.

Background: Ice hockey has one of the highest sport participation and injury rates in youth in Canada. Body checking (BC) is the predominant mechanism of injury in leagues in which it is permitted. The objectives of this study were to determine whether the incidence and types of physical contact differ for Bantam players (aged 13–14 years) who were exposed to BC at Pee Wee level (aged 11–12 years) in Calgary, Alberta versus Bantam players who were not exposed to BC at Pee Wee level in Québec City, Québec. All teams were exposed to BC at bantam level; Methods: A cohort study was conducted in Québec City and Calgary. Sixteen games for Calgary and 15 for Québec City were randomly selected and analysed with a validated observation system to quantify five intensities of physical contact and to observe different types of physical contact such as slashing and holding; Results: A total of 5610 incidences of physical contact with the trunk and 3429 other types of physical contact were observed. Very light intensity trunk contact was more frequent in Calgary (adjusted incidence RR (ARR): 1.71; 95% CI: 1.28–2.29). Holding (ARR: 1.04; 95% CI: 1.02–1.07) and slashing (ARR: 1.38; 95% CI: 1.07–1.77) were more frequent in Calgary; Conclusion: Results suggest that players’ physical contacts differ between Bantam leagues in which BC was permitted at Pee Wee level and leagues in which it was not permitted until Bantam level. View Full-Text