Patterns and predictors of concussion symptom presentations in NCAA athletes

ABSTRACT

Sport-related concussion (SRC) is a complex injury, and SRCs are notably prevalent among National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) athletes. We analysed SRCs and associated exposure data collected within the NCAA Injury Surveillance Program during 2014–2019. A total of 1,709 SRCs were reported with complete symptom profiles during the study period (Women’s sports n = 499; Men’s sports n = 1,210). Event type and academic class year most commonly predicted specific symptom presentations among athletes in men’s sports, while symptom presentation among athletes in women’s sports was most commonly predicted by class year and sport classification. We observed 78 and 69 significant pairwise symptom dependencies in men’s and women’s sports athletes, respectively; odds of longer symptom resolution time were higher with greater counts of symptoms with strongest cross-domain associations. Our findings highlight several contextual predictors of specific symptom presentations and identify parsimonious symptom subsets that may indicate protracted recovery among men’s and women’s sports athletes.

KEYWORDS:

• Epidemiology
• sport-related concussions
• concussion symptoms

Disclosure statement

The content of this report is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funding organization. We thank the many ATs who have volunteered their time and efforts to submit data to the NCAA-ISP. Their efforts are greatly appreciated and have had a tremendously positive effect on the safety of collegiate student-athletes.

Data availability statement

This manuscript contains materials created, compiled or produced by the Datalys Center. Authors do not have the liberty to share these data, and the data are only available upon requests made directly to the Datalys Center.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15438627.2022.2105218

Additional information

Funding

The NCAA Injury Surveillance Program was funded by the NCAA. The Datalys Center is an independent nonprofit organization that manages the operations of the NCAA ISP.