Prevalence and proposed aetiologies of dystonias or yips in athletes playing overhand sports: a scoping review protocol

Introduction Sports-related dystonia, also called the yips, are often seen in athletes in multiple sports. In this condition, an athlete abruptly loses the ability to perform a repetitive motion performed thousands of times. Such occurrences are often assumed to be psychological in nature, and thus evaluation for other causes is often lacking. All reviews on the topic have failed to focus on athletes in overhand sports. This scoping review will evaluate the available evidence regarding upper extremity focal dystonias (yips) in athletes participating in overhand sports in any worldwide clinical or sport setting. Methods and analysis We will conduct our scoping review with guidance from the latest version of the Joanna Briggs Institute’s (JBI) Manual for Evidence Synthesis, a widely accepted methodology for conducting reviews. We organised our research question and inclusion criteria to the JBI’s mnemonic; Participants: athletes that participate in overhand sports; Concept: upper extremity focal dystonias or yips; and Context: any worldwide clinical or sports setting. Search results were retrieved on 26–27 June 2024, in the following databases: MEDLINE (Ovid) 1946–2024, SPORTDiscus (EBSCOhost) 1800–2024, APA PsycINFO (EBSCOhost) 1872–2024, Embase (Elsevier) 1974–2024, Web of Science Core Collection (Clarivate) 1900–2024, Sports Medicine & Education Index (ProQuest) 1970–2024 and Dissertations and Theses Global (ProQuest) 1861–2024. Using Covidence, two reviewers from a team of three will independently screen titles and abstracts, screen full text articles for inclusion, and independently extract data from our included studies. Results will be presented as a narrative descriptive analysis along with tabular data on the prevalence, diagnostic criteria and treatment for yips in athletes of overhand sports. Ethics and dissemination As this describes a scoping protocol, ethical approval is not necessary. Review findings will be submitted to peer-reviewed publications and presentations at local and national conferences. Trial registration number This protocol is registered with the Open Science Framework.