ArticleBritish journal of sports medicine2002
The quality of research in sports journals.
Article in British journal of sports medicine, 2002. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Dry Needling in Sports and Sport Recovery: A Systematic Review with an Evidence Gap Map.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2025Pooled it
- How evidence based is the management of two common sports injuries in a sports injury clinic?British journal of sports medicine · 2005Pooled it
- The Sport Publication Observational Research Tool (SPORT): An Objective Tool to Score the Methodological Quality of Observational Clinical Sports Medicine Research.Orthopaedic journal of sports medicine · 2026Article
- Strength Training versus Stretching for Improving Range of Motion: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
- Running Performance, VOSports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2018Review
- Traumeel - an emerging option to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in the management of acute musculoskeletal injuries.International journal of general medicine · 2011Article
- Mapping the literature of athletic training.Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA · 2007Article
- Reducing risk of injury due to exercise.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2002Article
- Description of research design of articles published in four Brazilian physical therapy journals.Brazilian journal of physical therapyArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo examine the evidence base of sports medicine research.
methodsA sample of four major journals that present core research in sport and exercise medicine (British Journal of Sports Medicine, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, and Physical Therapy) was examined using assessment criteria taken from the READER method.
resultsRandomised controlled trials comprised 10% or less of all original research articles. Observational/descriptive studies were the most commonly published study design. There was a highly significant difference (p<0.0001) in the contents of the four journals but when they were compared by categorising the better quality methods together (randomised control trial, case-control, and cohort studies), the difference was not significant (p = 0.09).
conclusionsThe overall pattern of publication type seems remarkably stable over medical journals, indicating that the quality of sports medicine research is comparable to that in other specialities.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.