La Trobe

Getting the most out of intensive longitudinal data: A methodological review of workload-injury studies

journal contribution
posted on 2021-08-11, 05:14 authored by J Windt, Clare ArdernClare Ardern, TJ Gabbett, Karim M Khan, CE Cook, BC Sporer, BD Zumbo
Objectives To systematically identify and qualitatively review the statistical approaches used in prospective cohort studies of team sports that reported intensive longitudinal data (ILD) (>20 observations per athlete) and examined the relationship between athletic workloads and injuries. Since longitudinal research can be improved by aligning the (1) theoretical model, (2) temporal design and (3) statistical approach, we reviewed the statistical approaches used in these studies to evaluate how closely they aligned these three components. Design Methodological review. Methods After finding 6 systematic reviews and 1 consensus statement in our systematic search, we extracted 34 original prospective cohort studies of team sports that reported ILD (>20 observations per athlete) and examined the relationship between athletic workloads and injuries. Using Professor Linda Collins' three-part framework of aligning the theoretical model, temporal design and statistical approach, we qualitatively assessed how well the statistical approaches aligned with the intensive longitudinal nature of the data, and with the underlying theoretical model. Finally, we discussed the implications of each statistical approach and provide recommendations for future research. Results Statistical methods such as correlations, t-tests and simple linear/logistic regression were commonly used. However, these methods did not adequately address the (1) themes of theoretical models underlying workloads and injury, nor the (2) temporal design challenges (ILD). Although time-to-event analyses (eg, Cox proportional hazards and frailty models) and multilevel modelling are better-suited for ILD, these were used in fewer than a 10% of the studies (n=3). Conclusions Rapidly accelerating availability of ILD is the norm in many fields of healthcare delivery and thus health research. These data present an opportunity to better address research questions, especially when appropriate statistical analyses are chosen.

Funding

JW was a Vanier Scholar funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

History

Publication Date

2018-01-01

Journal

BMJ Open

Volume

8

Issue

10

Article Number

e022626

Pagination

17p. (p. 1-17)

Publisher

BMJ Group

ISSN

2044-6055

Rights Statement

The Author reserves all moral rights over the deposited text and must be credited if any re-use occurs. Documents deposited in OPAL are the Open Access versions of outputs published elsewhere. Changes resulting from the publishing process may therefore not be reflected in this document. The final published version may be obtained via the publisher’s DOI. Please note that additional copyright and access restrictions may apply to the published version.

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