The Fragility Index of Risk Factors for Hamstring Injuries.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To determine the Fragility Index of hamstring injury risk factors, defined as the minimum number of participants who would need to change classification to make a hamstring injury risk factor statistically nonsignificant. DESIGN: Retrospective secondary data analysis. METHODS: Studies that investigated 1 or more risk factors for hamstring injury, and presented sufficient data to develop a 2 × 2 contingency table were included. A systematic literature search and reference screening of a recent hamstring injury systematic review were conducted to identify 78 articles. Relative risk and 95% confidence intervals were determined and then systematically recalculated by removing 1 observation from the high-risk injury count and adding it to the high-risk noninjury count. The Fragility Index for a risk factor was the number of observations required to be moved between groups until the relative risk was no longer significant. RESULTS: The median Fragility Index of all hamstring injury risk factors was 3 (Q1-Q3 = 2-6). The Fragility Index for nonmodifiable risk factors was 3 (Q1-Q3 = 2-6) and 3 (Q1-Q3 = 2-5) for modifiable risk factors. Over 35% of all included hamstring injury risk factors had a Fragility Index of ≤2. CONCLUSION: Most statistically significant hamstring injury risk factors are fragile associations. The interpretation of significant hamstring injury risk factors should consider a range of statistical metrics, and while the Fragility Index should never be considered in isolation, it is an intuitive measure to help assess the robustness of findings. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther 2024;54(10):672-678. Epub 4 September 2024. doi:10.2519/jospt.2024.12300.