Anxiety-Related Concussion Perceptions of Parents of Youth Athletes.

Abstract

Context: Parents are key decisionmakers for 1 the health and wellness of their children. Despite the benefits of engaging in physical activity, parental concerns about concussion may create hesitancy towards sport participation. The magnitude of concussion-related anxiety perceptions and factors that influence these beliefs in parents of youth athletes are largely unknown.

Objective: To determine the prevalence of concussion-related anxiety perceptions in parents of youth athletes and establish the associations among concussion-related anxiety and demographic variables (i.e., parent sex, parent concussion history, child concussion history, parent concussion education).

Design: Cross-sectional paper survey.

Setting: Youth sports.

Patients or other participants: 452 parents (60% female; mean age = 40.4±13.0 years) of youth athletes (8-14 years old) who participated in soccer, ice hockey, lacrosse, and football (i.e., higher concussion risk sports) in Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Main outcomes measures: Survey items were adapted from the Perceptions of Concussion Inventory for Athletes (PCI-A) to pertain to perceptions about their child. Parents also completed a demographic survey regarding concussion-related topics.

Results: Overall, 73.2% of parents found the possibility of their child sustaining a concussion to be upsetting, 61.5% were fearful of their child sustaining a concussion, and 45.1% reported that the thought of their child having a concussion makes them feel anxious. Only 4.6% of parents suggested that concussions do not worry them. The lack of a personal concussion history and being female were associated with greater concussion-related anxiety in parents.

Conclusions: This study provides evidence that parents of youth athletes have anxiety about their child sustaining a concussion, while also contributing to the understanding of what factors are related to such anxiety (i.e., female parent; no parent history of concussion). Negative parental concussion beliefs may contribute to the reduction in contact sport participation and should be directly addressed in concussion education specific to youth sport participation.