An Examination of Concussion Understanding Among Parents of High School Female Student Athletes

Few online concussion education programs have been developed specifically for parents, and those that have been tend to neglect the fact that concussion rates are higher in female rather than male student athletes (Donaldson et al., 2016; Macdonald & Hauber, 2016; Williamson et al., 2014). This quantitative study is important because it addressed gaps in the concussion education literature. The purpose of this study was to examine whether concussion symptoms knowledge and general youth sports-related concussion knowledge was significantly higher among parents of female student athletes who watched the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Heads Up concussion videos (intervention group) than among parents of female student athletes who read an online concussion awareness fact sheet (control group). A quasi-experimental, posttest-only control-group design was used to compare concussion knowledge differences between parents who watched the videos and those who read the standard concussion awareness fact sheet. The experiment was conducted using the online survey platform Qualtrics®. The required sample size was 128 participants, with 64 in the intervention group and 64 in the control group. The participants came from the Qualtrics® study pool of participants who met study criteria and were randomly assigned to the intervention or control group. After random assignment and informed consent, parents clicked the screen link that took them to either the videos or the fact sheet. After completing the awareness fact sheet or watching the videos, parents answered an information survey and two questionnaires measuring parental knowledge of concussion symptoms and youth sports-related concussions, respectively. Descriptive statistics were run on participant data and the study dependent variables. Independent samples t-tests were conducted for hypothesis testing. The researcher found no significant difference in the understanding of concussion symptoms, as measured by the CSRS (McLeod et al., 2007), between parents of girls who play organized sports at the high school level who read an online concussion awareness fact sheet (control group) versus those who viewed the CDC’s Heads Up concussion training videos (intervention group). Additionally, there was no significant difference in the understanding of youth sports-related concussion knowledge, as measured by the CDC’s (2004) Heads Up CYSS, between parents of girls who play organized sports at the high school level who read an online concussion awareness fact sheet (control group) versus those who viewed the CDC’s Heads Up concussion training videos (intervention group).