"I lied a little bit." A qualitative study exploring the perspectives of elite Australian athletes on self-reported data.

OBJECTIVES

Explore the perceptions and experiences of elite Australian athletes' engagement with reporting data in surveillance systems.

DESIGN

Qualitative Descriptive.

SETTING

Semi-structured interviews conducted using Zoom.

PARTICIPANTS

We recruited 13 elite Australian athletes competing at a national or international level for semi-structured interviews.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Audio recordings were transcribed using DeScript, checked for errors and imported into QSR NVIVO. Thematic analysis using QSR NVIVO was used to determine key themes from transcripts.

RESULTS

Thematic analysis uncovered four key themes: 'the paradox of reporting', 'data for data's sake', 'eyes on reporting' and 'athlete friendly reporting'.

CONCLUSION

Athletes perceived reporting as a burden and the athlete management system presented numerous technological difficulties which led to athletes to backfill data entries and compromise data accuracy. Athletes had little knowledge on how their data was used and managed and often received minimal feedback from staff accessing the data. Athletes were unaware of who has access to their data, which is of concern as sensitive information may be collected and athletes may be underage. As a result, many athletes chose to report dishonest data to avoid their performance being questioned.