Identifying evidence-practice gaps for shoulder injury risk factors in competitive swimmers: uniting literature and expert opinion
Article
Article Title | Identifying evidence-practice gaps for shoulder injury risk factors in competitive swimmers: uniting literature and expert opinion |
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ERA Journal ID | 9744 |
Article Category | Article |
Authors | McKenzie, Alec Kenneth, Hams, Andrea, Headrick, Jonathon, Donaldson, Alex, Dann, Rick, Coyne, Joseph and Duhig, Steven John |
Journal Title | British Journal of Sports Medicine |
Number of Pages | 9 |
Year | 2024 |
Publisher | BMJ |
Place of Publication | United Kingdom |
ISSN | 0306-3674 |
1473-0480 | |
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2023-108023 |
Web Address (URL) | https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2024/08/05/bjsports-2023-108023 |
Abstract | Objectives To identify evidence-practice gaps regarding shoulder injury risk factors in competitive swimmers. Methods We gathered insights from 27 swimming experts including elite swimmers, coaches, high-performance staff and applied researchers using Concept Mapping. Participants brainstormed, sorted and rated (from 1 (least) to 10 (most) important and modifiable) their ideas of shoulder injury risk factors in competitive swimmers. Proposed risk factors rated above the grand mean for importance (6.2±0.4) or modifiability (6.5±0.5) ratings were considered highly important/modifiable. Expert opinions were then juxtaposed with systematic review findings to identify overlaps or convergences. Results Brainstorming generated 126 proposed shoulder injury risk factors for competitive swimmers, subsequently refined to 61 unique proposed risk factors by removing duplicates and combining similar responses. The participants sorted the 61 risk factors into seven distinct clusters. Experts perceived 36/61 proposed risk factors as highly important, of which 6 were supported by literature, 6 showed no association with injury, 2 had conflicting evidence and the remaining 22 have not yet been investigated, suggesting an evidence-practice gap. Three proposed risk factors ‘inconsistent training load’, ‘poor stroke technique’ and ‘low posterior shoulder strength-endurance’ exhibited high perceived importance, high perceived modifiability and supporting evidence. Conclusion An evidence-practice gap was identified for 28 proposed risk factors perceived as highly important by swimming experts despite either (1) no relevant empirical research (n=22), or (2) no association with injury (n=6) from synthesised evidence. Greater collaboration between researchers and practitioners is needed to effectively address shoulder injury risk factors in competitive swimmers. |
Keywords | Swimming |
Contains Sensitive Content | Does not contain sensitive content |
ANZSRC Field of Research 2020 | 320225. Sports medicine |
Public Notes | The accessible file is the accepted version of the paper. Please refer to the URL for the published version. |
Byline Affiliations | Queensland Academy of Sport, Australia |
Griffith University | |
La Trobe University | |
Bond University | |
University of Southern Queensland |
https://research.usq.edu.au/item/z993w/identifying-evidence-practice-gaps-for-shoulder-injury-risk-factors-in-competitive-swimmers-uniting-literature-and-expert-opinion
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