Arora Nitin Kumar, Roehrken Golo, Crumbach Sarah, Phatak Ashwin, Labott Berit K, Nicklas André, Wicker Pamela, Donath Lars
Department of Intervention Research in Exercise Training, German Sport University Cologne, 50933 Cologne, Germany.
Department of Physiotherapy, University of Applied Sciences, 44801 Bochum, Germany.
Sports (Basel). 2023 Feb 16;11(2):47. doi: 10.3390/sports11020047.
Sports and exercise training research is constantly evolving to maintain, improve, or regain psychophysical, social, and emotional performance. Exercise training research requires a balance between the benefits and the potential risks. There is an inherent risk of scientific misconduct and adverse events in most sports; however, there is a need to minimize it. We aim to provide a comprehensive overview of the clinical and ethical challenges in sports and exercise research. We also enlist solutions to improve method design in clinical trials and provide checklists to minimize the chances of scientific misconduct. At the outset, historical milestones of exercise science literature are summarized. It is followed by details about the currently available regulations that help to reduce the risk of violating good scientific practices. We also outline the unique characteristics of sports-related research with a narrative of the major differences between sports and drug-based trials. An emphasis is then placed on the importance of well-designed studies to improve the interpretability of results and generalizability of the findings. This review finally suggests that sports researchers should comply with the available guidelines to improve the planning and conduct of future research thereby reducing the risk of harm to research participants. The authors suggest creating an oath to prevent malpractice, thereby improving the knowledge standards in sports research. This will also aid in deriving more meaningful implications for future research based on high-quality, ethically sound evidence.
体育与运动训练研究在不断发展，以维持、改善或恢复心理生理、社会和情感表现。运动训练研究需要在益处与潜在风险之间取得平衡。大多数体育项目都存在科学不端行为和不良事件的固有风险；然而，有必要将其降至最低。我们旨在全面概述体育与运动研究中的临床和伦理挑战。我们还列出了改善临床试验方法设计的解决方案，并提供清单以尽量减少科学不端行为的发生几率。首先，总结了运动科学文献的历史里程碑。随后详细介绍了有助于降低违反良好科学规范风险的现行法规。我们还概述了体育相关研究的独特特征，并讲述了体育试验与药物试验之间的主要差异。接着强调精心设计研究对于提高结果的可解释性和研究结果的普遍性的重要性。这篇综述最后建议体育研究人员应遵守现有指南，以改进未来研究的规划和实施，从而降低对研究参与者造成伤害的风险。作者建议制定一项誓言以防止不当行为，从而提高体育研究中的知识标准。这也将有助于基于高质量、符合伦理的证据为未来研究得出更有意义的启示。
