Evaluation of Agreement Between Participant and Expert on Jump-Landing Characteristics During a 4-Week Intervention.

ABSTRACT

CONTEXT Feedback is an important factor in interventions designed to reduce anterior cruciate ligament injury risk. Self-analysis feedback requires participants to self-critique their jump-landing mechanics; however, it is unknown if individuals can effectively self-analyze their own biomechanics and if this self-analysis agrees with observed biomechanical changes by an expert. OBJECTIVE: To determine agreement between an expert and participants on biomechanical errors committed during 3 of 12 sessions, which were part of an intervention to change jump-landing biomechanics in healthy females. DESIGN: Descriptive analysis. SETTING: Research laboratory. PATIENTS OR OTHER PARTICIPANTS: Healthy recreationally active females with no history of lower-extremity fracture or surgery. INTERVENTIONS: Participants completed a 4-week, 12-session feedback intervention. Each intervention session lasted approximately 15 minutes and included asking participants to perform 6 sets of 6 jumps off a 30-cm-high box placed 50% of their height away from the target landing area. Participants performed self-analysis feedback and received expert feedback on 7 different jump-landing criteria following each set of jumps. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Data were coded, and agreement between the expert and the participant was assessed using Cohen's unweighted kappa for sessions 1, 6, and 12. RESULTS: There was agreement between the expert and participants for 0/7 criteria for session 1, 3/7 criteria for session 6, and 4/7 criteria for session 12. CONCLUSIONS: Participants demonstrated some agreement with the expert when evaluating their jump-landing biomechanics. Self-analysis feedback may not replace what an expert can provide; both types of feedback may be better used in conjunction to produce significant biomechanical changes. Changes made by the participant may not translate into biomechanical changes during a real-life game or practice situation. Future research should continue to investigate effective interventions to reduce injury risk.