Up Front and Open? Shrouded in Secrecy? Or Somewhere in Between? A Meta-Research Systematic Review of Open Science Practices in Sport Medicine Research

Abstract

Medicine, (4) Medicine Science Sport and Exercise, and (5) Sports Medicine-Open). Studies were excluded if they were systematic reviews, qualitative research, grey literature, or animal or cadaver models.Data Synthesis: Open science practices were extracted in accordance with the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) guidelines and patient and public involvement (PPI).Results: 243 studies were included. The median number of open science practices in each study was 2, out of a maximum of 12 (Range: 0-8; IQR: 2). 234 studies (96%, 95% CI: 94-99%) provided an author conflict of interest statement and 163 (67%, 95% CI: 62-73%) reported funding. 21 studies (9%, 95% CI: 5-12%) provided open access data. Fifty-four studies (22%, 95% CI: 17-27%) included a data availability statement and 3 (1%, 95% CI: 0-3%) made code available. Seventy-six studies (32%, 95% CI: 25-37%) had transparent materials and 30 (12%, 95% CI: 8-16) used a reporting guideline. Twenty-eight studies (12%, 95% CI: 8-16%) were preregistered. Six studies (3%, 95% CI: 1-4%) published a protocol. Four studies (2%, 95% CI: 0-3%) reported an analysis plan a priori. Seven studies (3%, 95% CI: 1-5%) reported patient and public involvement. Conclusion:Open science practices in the sports medicine field are extremely limited. The least followed practices were sharing code, data, and analysis plans.

Do randomised clinical trials on dental caries adopt Open Science Practices?

“…Studies evaluating OSPs in other areas have found even lower frequencies for different practices compared to our sample, even considering that they evaluated more recently published manuscripts. The frequency of articles with pre-registration was about 16% in articles published in surgical journals [25], about 8% for papers on medical radiology [26] and 12% for manuscripts on sports medicine [27]. A study evaluating more than 10,000 manuscripts on dental research observed a frequency of 7% of the papers with the registered protocol.…”

“…Most papers included in this previous study were published since 2005, and the evaluation of OSPs was automatised [28]. Regarding reporting guidelines, 8% [26] and 12% [27] of the papers published in radiology and sports medicine, respectively, followed guidelines to report the manuscript. However, the higher values found in our study are probably due to our focus solely on RCTs, while previous studies considered any type of study [25][26][27].…”

“…Regarding reporting guidelines, 8% [26] and 12% [27] of the papers published in radiology and sports medicine, respectively, followed guidelines to report the manuscript. However, the higher values found in our study are probably due to our focus solely on RCTs, while previous studies considered any type of study [25][26][27]. Indeed, guidelines for reporting RCT are pioneers in this sense [29].…”