Relationships between contextual factors and pooled return to sport rates
| Contextual factor | Person related | Surgery related | Other | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gender | Graft type | Sports performance level | Length of follow-up | ||||||
| Return to sport rate (articles contributing to meta-analyses: any, preinjury, competitive sport)* | Men (7, 16, 8) | Women (5, 13, 5) | Hamstring tendon (15, 20, 9) | Patellar tendon (17, 14, 3) | Elite (6, 11, 9) | Non-elite (51, 42, 19) | Up to 12 months (9, 12, 9) | 12–36 Months (21, 16, 7) | >36 Months (21, 16, 8) |
| Return to any sport (%), (mean, 95% CI) | 80 (68 to 90) | 75 (67 to 82) | 89 (80 to 95) | 83** (64 to 95) | 85 (71 to 95) | 80* (72 to 86) | 84 (72 to 93) | 82 (72 to 90) | 79 (63 to 90) |
| Return to preinjury level sport (%) (mean, 95% CI) | 61 (50 to 71) | 52** (41 to 63) | 62 (51 to 72) | 67** (53 to 80) | 79 (70 to 86) | 60** (53 to 67) | 66 (52 to 79) | 63 (53 to 73) | 61 (50 to 72) |
| Return to competitive level sport (%) (mean, 95% CI) | 78 (58 to 93) | 68** (37 to 93) | 47 (33 to 62) | 27** (20 to 34) | 81 (70 to 90) | 42** (33 to 49) | 65 (46 to 82) | 53 (37 to 69) | 43 (29 to 58) |
*p<0.05, **p<0.01.
*The number of articles contributing data to each subgroup, for each return to sport rate, are reported in parentheses; article references are presented in online supplementary appendix C.