Yung, Kate K ORCID: 0000-0003-1906-4111 (2023) Developing methodologies to improve return-to-sport decision quality through a complex systems approach. PhD thesis, Victoria University.

Abstract

Making a return-to-sport (RTS) decision is often challenging, as the rehabilitation process is complex, and the decision affects the health and performance of the athlete. Clinicians have been harnessing the advantages of sports technology to capture and leverage data in the hope of securing competitive advantages in professional sports. With the extensive application of technologies and wearable sensors, increasingly more data are collected continuously during training and rehabilitation sessions. This has spurred a drive for clinicians to process, aggregate and interpret different metrics. However, humans have a limited capacity for information processing and are prone to biases and influences that may affect decision making. Given the data collected in sports settings are increasingly complex and the interactions are of nonlinear nature, clinicians seek to improve their decision quality in RTS by combining their clinical expertise with scientific data. This thesis addresses this gap, using a complex systems approach to underpin the study methodology. The first study discusses how to evaluate a RTS decision from a decision analysis perspective and proposes a framework to improve decision-making quality. Then, the second study discusses the characteristics of complex systems and provides examples of this approach in decision making. Two case studies in football (soccer) are used to investigate how advanced analytics may assist clinicians in decision making. Specifically, this thesis addresses the practicability, feasibility and interpretability of two analytical techniques: change point and association rule methods. Collectively, the findings from these studies may assist clinicians in improving decision making practically.

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