| Between 1.6 million and 3.8 million sports and recreation-related traumatic brain injuries, including concussions, occur each year, many of which were not medically treated. In the past 10 years, growing attention has been paid in the field of academia to the long-term psychological and neurological consequences that repeated head injuries pose to athletes. As research evolves, the scientific community has slowly begun to understand neurodegenerative illnesses like chronic traumatic encephalopathy and the relationship that this disease has with professional athletes, repeated head injuries, and suicidal risk. Although the knowledge of these relationships is beginning to evolve, there continues to be a profound lack of research identifying the relationships between sports-related concussions, multiple sports-related concussions, depression, and risk of suicide among current and former athletes. The present study sought to explore these relationships utilizing measures including the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D), the Acute Concussion Evaluation measure (ACE), and the Reasons for Living-Short Form (RFL-SF). Data were analyzed using analysis of variance tests (ANOVA) and t-tests. The results demonstrated a non-significant relationship between a history of sports-related concussions and depression levels, a history of sports-related concussions and protective factors against suicide, and a history of sports-related concussions and risk of suicide when comparing current and former athletes with concussion histories to current and former athletes without any concussion history. In analyzing only those athletes who had a positive concussion history, results demonstrated that the more concussions an athlete received, the more symptoms of depression they experienced. Implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research are discussed. |
