title: Limited knowledge of concussion symptoms in college athletes.
abstract: Concussions are common in athletes and often go unreported. A likely contributor to underreporting of concussions in athletes is lack of knowledge of concussion-related symptoms. The current study assessed concussion symptom knowledge in 382 Division I athletes and 230 nonathletes. Participants were asked to identify potential symptoms following a concussion from a list of both real symptoms and distractors. Student-athletes expected significantly more total symptoms following a concussion than did nonathletes, and they correctly identified symptoms such as nausea and/or vomiting and being easily upset by loud noises more frequently than controls. However, many student-athletes failed to identify possible emotional symptoms resulting from a concussion, and approximately 70% of student-athletes endorsed the distracter item "forgetting names or faces of people you know well" as being a symptom of concussion. These current findings suggest that student-athletes may have an incomplete understanding of concussion-related symptoms, and future studies are needed to determine whether formal education sessions can improve knowledge for this high-risk population.
authors: a Department of Psychology , Kent State University , Kent , Ohio.
authors: Andrew
authors: A
authors: Fedor
authors: John
authors: J
authors: Gunstad
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D056352:Athletes / Q000523:psychology*; D001924:Brain Concussion / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D014495:Universities; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: amnesia; athletes; college; concussion; knowledge