Abstract
Objective
To assess how different decision-guiding factors, such as health- and performance-related
stakeholders, as well as evidence-based guidelines, support the process-oriented final
positive return-to-play (RTP) decision of head coaches responsible for semiprofessional
sport teams.
Design
Cross-sectional survey.
Setting
Team sport.
Participants
A survey consisting of questions on the importance of different decision-guiding factors
used when making the RTP decision after injuries was administered to and completed
by head coaches (N=238) of semiprofessional players' teams.
Interventions
Not applicable.
Main Outcome Measures
With respect to helpfulness in the RTP decision-making process, the coaches rated
both the importance of the opinions of physicians, physiotherapists, strength and
conditioning coaches, and the athletes themselves, and the importance of the general
and injury-specific RTP guidelines.
Results
Our survey revealed that the head coaches rely on physicians and physiotherapists
to a large extent, to the athletes and to themselves to a medium extent, and to strength
and conditioning coaches and RTP guidelines to a small but still relevant extent.
The coaches' efforts to seek a shared decision-making process in RTP are, hence, partially
evident.
Conclusions
A multitude of actuators intervene when making the RTP decision. The professionalization
of the RTP process in semiprofessional sports includes the athletes themselves, the
head coaches, the (external) physicians, the (external) physiotherapists, and the
strength and conditioning coaches based on general RTP decision-making models and
specific criteria related to injury type, sports type, level, and playing position.
The development of awareness and implementation strategies of RTP models should be
subject to further research.
Keywords
List of abbreviations:
ACL (anterior cruciate ligament), RTP (return to play)To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
Purchase one-time access:
Academic & Personal: 24 hour online accessCorporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online accessOne-time access price info
- For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal'
- For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'
Subscribe:
Subscribe to Archives of Physical Medicine and RehabilitationAlready a print subscriber? Claim online access
Already an online subscriber? Sign in
Register: Create an account
Institutional Access: Sign in to ScienceDirect
References
- 2016 consensus statement on return to sport from the First World Congress in Sports Physical Therapy, Bern.Br J Sports Med. 2016; 50: 853-864
- Return to play following injury: whose decision should it be?.Br J Sports Med. 2014; 48: 394-401
- Team clinician variability in return-to-play decisions.Clin J Sport Med. 2013; 23: 456-461
- Final comment: return-to-play decision making: does level of competition make a difference?.PM R. 2016; 8: S139-S143
- Good practice in the conduct and reporting of survey research.Int J Qual Health Care. 2003; 15: 261-266
- Handling nonresponse issues.J Ext. 1983; 21: 45-50
- Estimating nonresponse bias in mail surveys.J Mark Res. 1977; 14: 396-402
- Do differential response rates to patient surveys between organizations lead to unfair performance comparisons?: Evidence from the English cancer patient experience survey.Med Care. 2016; 54: 45-54
- The American Association for Public Opinion Research Standard definitions: final dispositions of case codes and outcome rates for surveys. 8th ed. AAPOR, Oakbrook Terrace, IL2015
- VBG VBG-Sportreport—2016: Analyse des Unfallgeschehens in den zwei höchsten Ligen der Männer: Basketball, Eishockey, Fußball & Handball. Jedermann-Verlag GmbH, Hamburg2016
- [Return to play decisions in professional soccer: a decision algorithm from a team physician's viewpoint].Z Orthop Unfall. 2011; 149 ([German]): 582-587
- Return-to-play in sport: a decision-based model.Clin J Sport Med. 2010; 20: 379-385
- Strategic Assessment of Risk and Risk Tolerance (StARRT) framework for return-to-play decision-making.Br J Sports Med. 2015; 49: 1311-1315
- Meniscus repair: the role of accelerated rehabilitation in return to sport.Sports Med Arthrosc. 2012; 20: 121-126
- Return to play after an ankle sprain: guidelines for the podiatric physician.Clin Podiatr Med Surg. 2015; 32: 195-215
- Variables associated with return to sport following anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction: a systematic review.Br J Sports Med. 2014; 48: 356-364
- Developing guidelines for return to play: consensus and evidence-based approaches.Brain Inj. 2015; 29: 185-194
- Evaluation and management of hamstring injuries.Am J Sports Med. 2013; 41: 2933-2947
- Return to play following muscle injuries in professional footballers.J Sports Sci. 2014; 32: 1229-1236
- Shared decision making—pinnacle of patient-centered care.N Engl J Med. 2012; 366: 780-781
- Professionalism and the ethics of the sideline physician.Curr Sports Med Rep. 2006; 5: 120-124
- Gauging the Impact of growing nonresponse on estimates from a national RDD telephone survey.Public Opin Q. 2006; 70: 759-779
- The effects of response rate changes on the Index of Consumer Sentiment.Public Opin Q. 2000; 64: 413-428
Article info
Publication history
Published online: November 20, 2017
Footnotes
Disclosures: none.
Identification
Copyright
© 2017 by the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine
