The missing ingredient in concussion education

This content was originally authored by Galen Moller in the 10/31/19 Concussion Alliance Weekly Newsletter

An article published in Sports Health: A Multidisciplinary Approach demonstrates that giving athletes the skills necessary to report a concussion could be a useful way to address the issue of under-reported concussions. The researchers, Dee Warmath and Andrew P. Winterstein, developed a scale to measure reporting skills by surveying 899 athletes, aged 18 to 24 years. They then surveyed 406 young adult athletes, measuring their reporting skills, their knowledge of concussions and concussion symptoms, and their intentions to report concussions.

They found that reporting skills were more important than concussion knowledge when it came to athletes’ intentions to report. They also found that among the athletes with higher levels of reporting skill, knowledge of concussion symptoms—but not general concussion knowledge—were associated with higher intentions to report concussions. They conclude that reporting skill is an “important and, until now, missing ingredient in the concussion literature and practice.”