| Student-athlete underreporting of concussion injuries to healthcare professionals is a cause for concern at many levels of athletics. According to previous research discussed in this study, many concussions go untreated and are not reported in athletics, placing athletes at risk for further harm by continuing to participate in sport with a head injury. This problem has led to increased energy in determining means to increase athlete concussion reporting. This study examines the use of concussion education using the educational video Brain 101 to determine if participating in concussion education influences concussion-reporting intentions and attitudes in collegiate athletes. The researcher collected data from 139 student athletes from 11 teams at a public university in the mid-Atlantic region to study the strength of association between concussion education and concussion-reporting intentions and attitudes, along with variables of gender, class rank, type of sport, and concussion-health history. Student athletes participated in a classroom electronic questionnaire to collect demographic data and Likert-type scale responses used to compute mean scores measuring concussion-reporting intention, direct attitudes, and indirect attitudes. A one-way analysis of variance was used to identify the level of association between the dependent variable of concussion education and each of the four independent variables of intention, direct attitude, indirect attitude, and perceived concussion knowledge. Results of the study indicated significance between concussion education and concussion-reporting intentions, concussion education and concussion- reporting direct attitudes, and concussion education and concussion-reporting indirect attitudes. Findings from this study will inform school administrators, athletic trainers, athletic directors, coaches, parents, and student athletes of the benefits of using concussion education to aid in student-athlete reporting intentions and attitudes as they relate to student-athlete wellness and safety in an institution's athletic program. |
