Evaluation of Reproducible and Transparent Research Practices in Sports Medicine Research: A Cross-sectional study

BackgroundIn recent years, urgency has been placed on the “reproducibility crisis” facing biomedical research. Despite efforts toward improvement, certain elements needed to reproduce a study are often lacking from publications. The current state of reproducibility within the sports medicine research community remains unknown.PurposeOur study sought to evaluate the presence of eight indicators of reproducibility and transparency to determine the current state of research reporting in sports medicine research.Study DesignCross-sectional reviewMethodsUsing the National Library of Medicine catalog, we identified 41 MEDLINE-indexed, English language sports medicine journals. From the 41 journals, we randomly sampled 300 publications that were recorded on PubMed as being published between January 1, 2014, and December 31, 2018. Two investigators extracted data in duplicate and blinded fashion.ResultsOf the 300 publications sampled, 280 were accessible and were screened for empirical data. Studies that lack empirical data were excluded from our analysis. Of the remaining 195 with empirical data, 10 (5.13%) publications provided data availability statements, 1 (0.51%) provided a protocol, 0 (0.0%) provided an analysis script, and 9 (4.62%) were pre registered.ConclusionReproducibility and transparency indicators are lacking in sports medicine publications. The majority of publications lack the necessary resources for reproducibility such as material, data, analysis scripts, or protocol availability. While the current state of reproducibility cannot be fixed overnight, we feel combined efforts of data sharing, open access, and verifying disclosure statements can help to improve overall reporting.