The prevalence and recovery of concussed male and female collegiate athletes

Abstract

The aims of the present study were two-fold: (1) to examine whether gender and explanatory style influence the number of concussions an athlete has sustained and the amount of time to recover from this type of injury; and (2) to determine whether gender and the type of sport influence the number of and recovery from concussion injuries. University varsity athletes (n=170) who had sustained at least one concussion over the previous 12 months from six sports completed both the Sport History Questionnaire (Delaney, Lacroix, Leclerc, & Johnston, 2000), used to measure concussions, and the Attributional Style Questionnaire (Peterson et al., 1982), used to measure explanatory style. Overall, males sustained more concussions than female athletes (F _1,153=43.92, P<0.05). Regarding the type of concussion, male athletes sustained more unrecognized concussions than female athletes (F _1,168=6.18, P<0.05), but there was no difference between the sexes for recognized concussions (F _1,168=0.44, P>0.05). Male basketball players took longer to recover (mean=6.17 days) than female basketball players (mean=1.15 days). In contrast, female hockey players took longer to recover (mean=9.56 days) than male hockey players (mean=1.00 day). Finally, gender did not influence an athlete's explanatory style.

Keywords:

• Concussion
• university athletes
• team sports