Concussion Awareness of Sports Physicians

Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate concussion awareness of sports medicine doctors. Materials and Methods: A pen and paper survey about concussion is conducted to sports medicine specialists and residents attending to 16th Turkish National Sports Medicine Congress. Survey was composed of 3 sections. First section was questioning if the participant is a resident or specialist, age, number of concussions managed per year and attendence to a lecture about concussion in the past. Participants were asked to choose concussion symptoms from 15 symptoms given in section two. Third section contained 10 true/false questions. Results: Forty five participants were included in the study. 53.3 % of the participants had never managed concussion in their practice. 64.4 % of the participants had never attended to a lecture about concussion. Mean symptom score was 9.9±1.8 over 15. The average number of correct answers to true/false questions was 4.31 ± 1.36 over 10. Conclusion: Concussion education and awareness of sports physicians in Turkey are below the expected. Comprehensive education on concussion should be included in medical school programs and sports medicine residency curriculum