Musculoskeletal disorders in basketball players and associated factors: a systematic review protocol with meta-analysis

Introduction : Musculoskeletal disorders play an important role in athletes’ health and success in sports; they are the main contributors to disability, and back pain is a common problem in athletes. Back pain and spinal injuries occur in players because of the repetitive and unilateral body overload during sports practice. Reviews focused on musculoskeletal disorders in basketball players are scarce in the literature. We describe a systematic review protocol for assessing the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders and the associated factors in basketball players. Methods and analysis : The protocol will be based on Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) items and articles will be searches in the databases EMBASE, PubMed, and Scopus. Studies will be included if they are written in English and without restriction regarding the search period. All research stages will be performed by two independent reviewers and will be conducted using Rayyan. Potential disagreements will be analyzed by a third reviewer. The inter-rater reliability will be determined through the Cohen's kappa coefficient. Evidence quality will be ascertained by using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations (GRADE) system, while the Downs and Black checklist will be used for assessing the risk of bias. A descriptive summary and presentation of the characteristics and findings of all included studies will be provided in a table. Regarding these data, if there are sufficient high-quality studies, we plan to perform a meta-analysis. Discussion : The obtained results might possibly relate back pain to postural changes in this population. In addition, the data will be compared based on gender and different age groups. It is expected that the results can support the implementation of programs and actions for prevention, ultimately aiming at improving health, quality of life, and sports performance. Registration: PROSPERO CRD42020201653 on August, 31, 2020.