Administrative Databases in Sports Medicine Research.

There has been a dramatic rise in the use of large-scale health administrative databases to investigate clinical outcomes within sports medicine over the past few years. Although these data sets identify large numbers of patients, allowing for the investigation of regional trends, health care utilization, and outcomes of surgical intervention, they were not designed with the intention of answering clinical questions. Recognizing the methodological limitations associated with these databases is prudent to avoid propagating spurious conclusions. This article offers an overview of the administrative databases commonly used within the orthopedic sports medicine literature and provides key principles for their critical appraisal.