Ho, ho, ho! Gather around, sports enthusiasts and curious minds alike, for I have a tale to tell that’s as intriguing as the mystery of how I manage to deliver all those presents in one night. This story, however, doesn’t involve reindeer or sleighs but the world of sports injuries and the quest to understand their costs. 🎅🎄

Once upon a recent time, from the frosty start of the year 2000 to the dawn of 2023, a group of diligent elves—ahem, I mean researchers—set out on a scoping review sleigh ride through the vast digital libraries of Scopus, MEDLINE, and CINHAL. Their mission? To uncover the secrets of estimating the cost of sports-related injuries. 📚🔍

Through the snowstorm of information, they found 31 studies that fit their magical criteria, with a notable observation that 87% of these studies were like the newest toys in my workshop, published since 2014. These studies were as varied as the gifts under a Christmas tree, focusing on different types of costs: 12 studies jingled all the way with direct healthcare costs, 10 studies wrapped up indirect costs, and 9 studies mixed both like a perfect batch of holiday cookies. 🍪💰

In their quest, the researchers discovered that a whopping 68% of the studies preferred to build their cost estimates from the ground up, just like elves crafting toys piece by piece. They gathered data on direct costs from the service rates or fee schedules of health systems, hospitals, insurance companies, or national insurance boards. Meanwhile, a smaller group of studies, 23% to be precise, took a top-down approach, estimating the indirect salary costs of time-loss injuries using data as publicly available as my list of who’s naughty or nice. 📈🎁

Interestingly, 32% of these studies viewed the cost from the perspective of a sporting organization, much like how I view the world from my North Pole workshop. However, the researchers noted a lack of explicit reporting on the methods used and the perspectives of those bearing the costs, a bit like trying to figure out how I fit down chimneys. 🏥🎅

In conclusion, estimating the cost of sports injuries is like the emerging trend of ugly Christmas sweaters—gaining popularity but still a bit rough around the edges. The researchers recommend expanding established cost of illness checklists with sport injury explanations, much like how I’ve had to update my toy-making manuals over the centuries. This guidance could help future studies make their list (of costs) and check it twice, ensuring clarity and thoroughness in this important area of research. 📋✨

So, as we look forward to more research in this field, let’s not forget the importance of understanding the costs associated with sports injuries, for it helps keep the spirit of healthy and safe sportsmanship alive, much like the joy of Christmas morning. 🎄🏈