Concussion in Australian community rugby union part 1: a nationwide concussion management procedure

The prevention and management of concussion is an ongoing challenge for sporting bodies worldwide. In community-level sport, there is a lack of robust data to support decision making around risk and recovery. This paper outlines a new Concussion Management Procedure (CMP) introduced to community rugby for managing concussion (specifically on-field management of suspected concussion), identifying the definitions, design, and inclusion parameters of the procedure.

In response to a community and sport need for direction on managing community players with concussion, Rugby Australia designed, trialled and introduced the new CMP. This CMP drew on the existing use of a yellow/red card from a referee when a player is sanctioned, by using a blue card as an indication of a player being removed from play for a suspected and confirmed concussion. Team administrators record all cards in the competition management software. Players with a blue card are unable to be selected for matches until medically cleared. The CMP encourages timely presentation to medical care and a cautious, medically supervised recovery before return to play.

This paper describes the Rugby Australia CMP. Through the CMP, data on the number of suspected and confirmed concussions can be obtained, together with key player (eg, age group) and game (eg, time in season) features and used for surveillance (quantifying concussion/ blue card occurrence) in community rugby.