Exploring Psychological Outcomes of Sport Concussion in Elite Athletes and their Parents

Abstract

At present, there is a paucity of research evaluating the long-term effects of concussion in children and adolescents. The purpose of this study was to examine psychosocial functioning of elite youth ice hockey players with a history of concussion. Further, this study investigated parent report and explored the level of agreement between parent and player report on a measure of psychosocial functioning. Participants included 492 elite youth male and female ice hockey players between the ages of 13 and 17 years from Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta. Control participants included players with a history of muscular skeletal (MSK) injuries and players with a history of no injuries. Players completed the Behavior Assessment Scale for Children, Self Report Questionnaire (BASC-2, Adolescent Form) and parents completed the BASC-2 Parent Report Scale at baseline. Results from the first analysis, which examined differences between players with a history of concussion, a history of MSK injuries and a history of no injuries using a MANOVA, indicated that players with a history of concussion reported a greater level of difficulty on the attention subscale in comparison to MSK controls [F(3, 487) = 3.26, p = .022, partial η2 = .020]. The next analysis examined individuals with a history of concussion closer and indicated that players with a history of two or more concussions were experiencing greater difficulties on the depression [F(2, 488) = 4.10, p = .017, partial η2 = .017] , attention [F(2, 488) = 4.00, p = .019, partial η2 = .016] and hyperactivity [F(5, 484) = 1.67, p = .014, partial η2 = .017] subscales in comparison to players with a history of no concussions. Parent report indicated no differences in reporting regardless of concussion or injury history [F(15, 1328) = .692, p = .789, partial η2 = .007]. The last analysis evaluated the level of agreement between player and parent report using paired samples t tests and correlations. Results indicated agreement on parent and player report of attention [t(127) = -0.068, p = .946] for those players with a history of concussion. Further, there was agreement on the depression [t(32) = -.645, p = 0.524] subscale if the player had experienced a history of two or more concussions. However, within the overall sample there was a low level of agreement between player and parent report. Overall, the results of the study suggest that players with a history of multiple concussions may experience subtle psychosocial difficulties that are recognizable by parents under some circumstances.