Factors associated with concussion-symptom knowledge and attitudes toward concussion care seeking in a national survey of parents of middle-school children in the US

Do Head Injury Biomechanics Predict Concussion Clinical Recovery in College American Football Players?

“…Unfortunately, there are no published studies on racial disparities in concussion symptom resolution. However, recent studies have identified that Non-Hispanic Whites perform better on baseline neurocognitive testing, 36 demonstrate greater odds of better concussion symptom knowledge and more positive careseeking attitudes, 16 and are more likely to recall and report a possible concussive injury 37 than their Black and African American peers. Given racial disparities are pervasive across the medical care continuum, this would be an interesting area for further research.…”

Reporting of Concussion Symptoms by a Nationwide Survey of United States Parents of Middle School Children

“…The Internet-based, self-administered questionnaire was based on a modified version of a previously validated instrument [26,27] including measures with high internal consistency [12]. Both the previous iteration and the current version were developed with input from parents of youth sport athletes, injury epidemiologists, athletic trainers, and other sports medicine professionals.…”

“…It may also be difficult for parents to identify concussions sustained by their children as children may find it difficult to describe their symptoms [31]. Consequently, interventions aiming to help middle school parents increase concussion knowledge should also help them consider strategies to better respond to suspected concussions and access medical care to aid recovery [12]. This could also include helping children describe how they are feeling after an impact, particularly if they are unable to pinpoint specific symptoms, and helping parents better communicate concussion education and symptoms to their children [16].…”

“…Middle school is an intermediary level of education between elementary and secondary school that typically includes three to four grade levels (ranging from the 5th-9th grades) with students aged 10-15 years [4,[12][13][14][15]. (Although this level may also be referred to as intermediate school or junior high, we will refer to it as middle school from here on).…”

“…Concussion knowledge assessment usually involves scale measures that assess an individual's ability to identify specific signs and symptoms, (hereinafter simplified as "symptoms") via checklists or true/false statements [12,[18][19][20]. However, such measurements may be limited in that they may overestimate/artificially inflate knowledge due to two main factors: (1) providing symptoms that a respondent may not have previously considered; and (2) offering limited response options (i.e., two options for a true/false) that default a respondent to having a high probability of correctly responding to a prompt by random means [21].…”