Concussions among Icelandic female athletes : self-reported prevalence with and without definition of concussion

Abstract

Purpose: The current study aims to examine whether female athletes base their self-reported concussion history on currently accepted medical definitions. Moreover, this study seeks to gather information about sports related concussions (SRCs) prevalence among Icelandic top-division female athletes. It was hypothesized that athletes' estimates of SRCs would significantly increase after being provided with a current medical definition, compared to their previous estimates. Method: A questionnaire was distributed through relevant Facebook pages (snowball sampling). Participants (M age = 26.9) were 508 former and current sportswomen hailing from soccer, handball, basketball, ice hockey and martial arts. Participants self-reported SRCs before and after being provided with a current medical definition of a concussion. Results: The rate of concussion reporting increased from 45% to 65% after a definition was given. Moreover, of those athletes that reported having sustained a concussion, 61.9% increased their estimation of the number of concussions from pre- to post-definition. This indicates that numerous participants lacked knowledge about the current medical definition. The SRCs prevalence among participants in this study was 65%. Conclusions: The current understanding of the definition of a concussion among current and former Icelandic female athletes is not consistent with the current accepted medical definition. However, our results indicate that Icelandic female athletes' understanding of concussions is better than preexisting results from other countries that are mainly focused on male athletes. It is essential that a definition is used when self-reported concussion history is assessed in a clinical setting just as in research.