Concussion Education and the Self-Reporting Rate of Concussion Symptoms among College Athletes

This study addressed the effectiveness of a structured concussion education tool in order to increase the knowledge of concussion symptoms among college athletes. Also, efforts were made to determine if the gained knowledge from the education tool would lead to an increase in the self-reporting of acquired concussion symptoms. For the study, pre and postseason surveys were administered to athletes among six universities. Athletes representing the experimental group received pre-season concussion education while the control group did not receive the education. Data concerning the athlete’s history of structured concussion education, retained knowledge of concussion symptoms, along with the rate of self-reported concussion symptoms was gathered and analyzed for significance. The study reported that over 73% of the surveyed athletes received some form of concussion education in college or high school. Also, analyzed data revealed a much greater rate of retained knowledge of concussion symptoms among the experimental group compared to the control group. Finally, there was no significant difference between the experimental group compared to the control group when studying the effect a structured education had on the self-reporting of concussion symptoms. The quantitative study demonstrated that a large majority of college athletes have received formal concussion education training. Also, a formal concussion education program does not affect the self-reporting rate of concussion symptoms but does positively affect the athlete’s recall of symptoms of concussion injuries