Predicting Injury: Challenges in Prospective Injury Risk Factor Identification.

Abstract

Musculoskeletal injury-prediction methods vary and may have limitations that affect the accuracy of results and clinical meaningfulness. Research examining injury risk factors is meaningful, but attempting to extrapolate injury risk from studies that do not prospectively assess injury occurrence may limit clinical applications. Injury incidence is a vital outcome measure, which allows for the appropriate interpretation of injury-prediction analyses; a lack of injury-incidence data may decrease the accuracy and increase the uncertainty of injury-risk estimates. Extrapolating results that predict an injury risk factor to predicting actual injuries may lead to inappropriate clinical decision-making models. Improved understanding of the limitations of injury-prediction methods, specifically those that do not prospectively assess injuries, will allow clinicians to better assess the clinical meaningfulness of the results.