Athletes’ understanding of concussion – uncertainty, certainty and the ‘expert’ on the street

Abstract

ABSTRACT Several scholars have examined the uncertainties faced by sport medicine professionals surrounding their diagnosis, treatment and management of concussion. Yet, recent evidence suggests that combat sport athletes seem to have ‘reasonably good concussion knowledge’. How, then, have athletes gained such an understanding when medical professionals have not? We argue that this logical inconsistency is most likely an artefact of inflexible, ‘snapshot’ methodological procedures rather than a nuanced representation of athletes’ actual understanding and experiences of concussion. We address this issue by employing immersive research strategies to provide epistemological space for complexities, contradictions and incoherencies that lie within fighters’ understanding of such experiences to come to the fore. In so doing, we demonstrate the interdependence between notions of ‘uncertainty’ and ‘certainty’ in fighters’ knowledge about concussion. Further to this, we propose the idea of ‘the expert on the street’ to explain the ways in which fighters gained lay medical certainty and highlight the potential problems that are imbedded within this process. To conclude, we suggest that inflexible, ‘snapshot’ methods will often produce overly reductive answers which do little to support the generation of the solutions which are needed to tackle concussion in sport.