Place de l'interrogatoire dans le diagnostic de surentraînement

Abstract: Objectives. –This literature review highlights the importance of medical interview in the early diagnosis of overtraining syndrome. We propose an analytic process consisting to specify with the athlete his answers to the self-administered overtraining questionnaire proposed by the French Sport Medicine Society. Topics. –The first step consists to ensure the long-term alteration of sport performance. This feature is a prerequisite to define an overtraining syndrome. This decrease in sport performance must be paralleled to an eventual increase in the training load. In a second step a chronic fatigue must be evidenced and characterized allowing to verify its specificity to overtraining and the absence of underlying disease. The third step aims to confirm the diagnosis of overtraining assessing the presence of physical and psychological symptoms frequently reported in the literature. The last step consists in seeking favoring factors and/or triggers linked to the sport practice, to the close environment of the athlete, or to personal factors. These factors may allow identifying the causes of overtraining and their relief. Future prospects. –Practically, we suggest to undertake this medical interview in depth in order to specify with the athlete his answers to the short self-administered overtraining questionnaire proposed by the French Sport Medicine Society (SFMS), a screening tool, integrating most of the items discussed in this article. Based on this literature review and on the different works performed by the memberships of the SFMS, the article proposed in the following, summarizes this analytic process. The latter is concluded by the position stand of the SFMS on the role of medical interview in early diagnosis of overtraining syndrome. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]