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Int J Sports Med 2008; 29(9): 703-705
DOI: 10.1055/s-2008-1038545
Editorial

© Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York

Is it Time for Sports Performance Researchers to Adopt a Clinical-Type Research Framework?

G. Atkinson1 , A. Batterham2 , B. Drust1
  • 1Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Sciences, Faculty of Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK
  • 2Centre for Food, Physical Activity, and Obesity Research, School of Health and Social Care, University of Teesside, Middlesbrough, UK
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Publication Date:
05 August 2008 (online)

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For this editorial, my invited co-authors and I would like to highlight a manuscript in this issue of Int J Sports Med entitled “The effects of exercise upon symptoms and quality of life in patients diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome: a randomised controlled trial” [5]. Not only do the authors address an interesting and important research question, but they also provide a reasonable template for anyone who might be contemplating a randomised controlled trial in the sport and exercise sciences.

The study by Daley et al. [5] is obviously more relevant to human health than to sports performance. Health researchers and clinicians have worked hard over the last 20 years to set down gold-standard research practices and methods for other researchers to adopt. For example, there is a logical and accepted “roadmap” in clinical research governing how a particular treatment or intervention should be examined for efficacy and effectiveness. Efficacy is a measure of the ability of a treatment to improve whatever condition it is indicated for, whereas effectiveness is a measure of how well a treatment works in the “real world” with the target population [6]. To cite an example that is relevant to sports performance, it is known that some substances (e.g., sodium bicarbonate) are efficacious in manipulating the acid-base balance during repeated bouts of intense exercise [4]. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of these substances for improving real athletic performance might be less clear due to the potential for inducing gastrointestinal disturbances. The exploration of issues like efficacy and effectiveness is inherent within the “phased” framework for clinical trials [12]. Alongside this framework, there are also published regulations covering how an individual randomised controlled trial should be managed and reported in a scientific journal. These regulations are laid down in the so-called “CONSORT” statement, which can be found at: http://www.consort-statement.org/.

We delimit this editorial to any study in which the primary variable is performance (or some component of athletic performance) and the research participants are competitive athletes. It is clear that there are sound studies published in the literature of this type and, in this editorial, we are able to cite some examples which have been published in past issues of Int J Sports Med. Nevertheless, we are unaware of any parallel procedures to phased clinical trials and the CONSORT statement, which have been set down by sports performance researchers to formalise the evidence-based research process. There are probably good reasons, which need to be considered, for this apparent difference between sports performance and clinical research methods. Hopefully, this editorial will help to initiate discussions at future conferences and workshops about whether such a framework is desirable for sports performance researchers and what form it might take.