The Game Plan: A Scoping Review of Implementation Science in Sport Science

Integrating evidence-informed information into everyday practice can present significant challenges. The field of implementation science (IS) emerged to help improve the connection of scientific findings to standard practice and minimize the knowledge-to-action gap. IS refers to the scientific study of methods to promote the adoption of evidence-informed practices (EIP) and has been adopted in many disciplines, including sport sciences. The present scoping review provides a comprehensive and critical overview of how IS has been used in the context of sport science between 1900 and 2024. Four databases (i.e., Web of Science, Sport Discus, Scopus, Medline-OVID) were searched using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR). The search yielded 31 articles that met the final inclusion criteria, and study characteristics were extracted and assessed including the article’s methods, focus/foci, tools, strategies, and outcomes. Results revealed that most (over 50%) of the articles meeting the criteria examined how IS can be used for injury prevention, with very few articles examining how IS can be used for other areas of sport including psychological interventions or coaching practices (amongst others). Importantly, in studies where IS was integrated into the methodological design, there was a greater efficiency in resource allocation and health outcomes for end-users. This scoping review provides important insights about the landscape of IS in sport science and highlights opportunities for researchers and practitioners to employ IS methods for enhancing the adoption of EIPs.