Collegiate athletes opinions regarding helmet use while riding scooters or mopeds.

Abstract

Many collegiate athletes use scooters and mopeds for transportation, and they are at greater risk for head injury without helmets. Objective: Investigate college athletes’ reasons for wearing/not wearing helmets while riding a scooter or moped. Participants, Methods: 125 Division I athletes across five teams (two with helmet mandates) completed a cross sectional survey on rates and attitudes about helmet use on scooters or mopeds. Results: Helmet use on mandated vs non-mandated teams was 100% vs 3.6% (OR 1141; 95% CI 56.97, 22,850). For the question, “if you do not wear a helmet, what might make you change your mind and wear one?”, players most commonly wrote in a law or coaches’ rule (57%). Conclusions: A coach’s rule is associated with a higher rate of helmet use in collegiate athletes, and athletes primarily report a rule or law as the reason they would wear a helmet on a scooter or moped.

Keywords:

• Collegiate athlete
• concussion
• helmet
• injury prevention
• NCAA
• scooter or moped

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the athletes who participated in this study, University of Wisconsin Assistant Athletic Director of Sports Medicine Michael Moll for his support, and University of North Carolina statistician Alfred Reid for his assistance with statistics.

Conflicts of interest disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report. The authors confirm that the research presented in this article met the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements, of the United States and received approval from the University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine.

Funding

No funding was used to support this research and/or the preparation of the manuscript.