RETIRED COLLEGE ATHLETES, CONCUSSION SYMPTOMS, AND COPING STRATEGIES
RETIRED COLLEGE ATHLETES, CONCUSSION SYMPTOMS, AND COPING STRATEGIES
Issue Date
2019
Authors
FORD, ELISABETH
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Abstract
Concussions, also known as the "invisible injury", are one of the most common injuries across all sports. The injury can result in a multitude of complex, and often invisible, symptoms with varying rehabilitation lengths. At the collegiate level, sports are highly competitive and the concussions that may result from an athlete's play are carefully managed by sport faculty and medical professionals. However, in some cases the resulting symptoms may linger past the athlete's college career and have an impact on daily functioning and quality of life that those former athletes experience. The purpose of this study is to explore the incidence of lingering concussion symptoms in retired college athletes and to report any potential coping strategies athletes use to manage those symptoms. Examining trends of lingering concussion symptoms and coping strategies may provide insight to the variability in responses to injury and intervention practices utilized by medical and mental health practitioners. More research in this area could be an important aspect of lifelong concussion care for retired athletes. Participants included 67 retired college athletes (female = 37) who reported incurring at a range of two to twelve diagnosed concussions and one to six undiagnosed concussions during their college career. The participants were sent three online surveys through Qualtrics. Surveys included a demographic questionnaire to gain concussion and collegiate histories, the Post Concussion Symptom Scale (PCSS; Pardini et. al, 2004) to determine the symptom severity, and the Brief COPE (Carver, 1997) used to determine type of coping strategies used and frequency of usage. Descriptive statistics were used to examine the occurrence of reported symptoms and coping strategies. Results showed that more than half of the participants reported experiencing two or more symptoms at moderate to severe levels. The PCSS scores were analyzed and compared to normative data presented by Lovell and colleagues (2006) using three separate independent t-test analyses. From the results we learn that retired college male and female athlete population reported significantly more symptoms than the normative college male and female population, respectively. Additionally, retired college athlete population reported significantly more symptoms than data collected from high school and college athletes with concussions. The Brief COPE data was analyzed to determine trends in utilization of coping strategies representing three different dimensions: approach, avoidance, and social. Overall, 69% of participants reported the utilization of positive, approach and social, coping strategies. More than half of the participants reported utilizing two or more strategies at medium and/or high rates for approach coping strategies, which were mostly utilized, followed by the avoidance and the social coping strategies. Results from this study show that a significant number of retired college athletes with concussion histories are still impacted by lingering symptoms years after graduation. Educators, athletic faculty, and medical providers must work to prepare college athletes for transition out of sport and find a way to provide on-going, accessible, support for athletes post-graduation.