When is a study result important for athletes, clinicians and team coaches/staff?

How do you know if the results of a particular study are important to your team, your patients or your community? A result that is statistically significant is not necessarily a meaningful target for sports injury prevention or a treatment strategy.1–3 And if statistical significance is not enough to determine ‘importance’ or meaningfulness, then what is? ### Box 1 Definition: Minimal important difference (MID) Minimal important difference (MID) is the smallest change in sports injury risk or treatment outcome that an athlete, a player, a coach, a clinician and/or team staff would identify as important. The size of MID is context-specific and a study result may be identified as important for some and non-important for others. We aim to shed light on this important topic in the first of a series of editorials that will help clinicians and team staff interpret studies more critically and confidently. First, a measure of association (eg, a relative risk or an absolute risk difference) and its precision (eg, 95% CIs) allows for appropriate evaluation of study results.1 Next, a size of an association should be equal to or exceed a minimal important difference (MID) (box 1) that would affect practice. In this light, the question remains: is it possible to identify a MID in sports injury articles regardless of the measure of association used? In this editorial, we argue that the choice of measure has consequences for the ability to …