Vested Interests and Perceived Risk of Concussion Consequences among Power-5 College Athletes.

Area of Science:

• Sports Medicine
• Neuroscience
• Public Health

Background:

• Concussion injuries in young athletes present a significant public health challenge, impacting both immediate and long-term brain health.
• Current detection and diagnosis methods rely heavily on athlete self-reporting, which is often hindered by ambiguous and invisible symptoms.
• Existing educational programs have proven ineffective in improving athlete reporting behaviors.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate collegiate athletes' perceptions of concussion risks and consequences.
• To inform the development of theory-based motivational and educational interventions for improving concussion reporting.
• To introduce and test a novel theoretical framework for understanding concussion risk perception.

Main Methods:

• Surveyed 435 collegiate athletes across six high-risk sports at Division I Power-5 conference universities.
• Employed a novel theoretical approach examining athletes' vested interests.
• Utilized statistical analysis to assess the predictive power of the vestedness model.

Main Results:

• The vestedness model significantly predicted athletes' perceived concussion risk, concussion education levels, and recalled head impacts.
• Identified specific opportunities for creating theory-based messages to enhance reporting behaviors.
• Demonstrated the utility of the vestedness model in explaining factors influencing risk perception.

Conclusions:

• A novel theoretical framework, the vestedness model, effectively explains factors influencing collegiate athletes' concussion risk perception.
• Findings suggest targeted, theory-based interventions can motivate improved concussion reporting among high-risk athletes.
• This research provides a foundation for optimizing concussion education strategies in collegiate sports.