The Athlete Psychological Passport: A smart tool for sport-related concussion in grassroots sport

Amateur sport is important in promoting a healthy lifestyle, but participation in it also brings potential for injury, including concussion. However, unlike elite and professional sport, there is limited access to standardized education and identification protocols. Because amateur sport has the highest percentage of unreported concussions, due to it having the highest number of participants and most concussions in comparison to any other level of sport, there is significant issue surrounding concussion detection and care.

This project aims to determine the effects of sport-related concussion on cognitive functioning, academic performance, and wellness, and how technology can be used to create an evidence-based process to help detect and prevent lasting symptoms of concussion in amateur, university aged student-athletes. A large cohort of first and/or second year university student-athletes will be recruited to participate in this two-year, longitudinal study. SSWITCH is the commercial partner of this project. They created SOMA, which is a mobile application with 70+ cognitive tests already in their library and have agreed to add assessments and questionnaires into it for this study. Monthly, participants will use their smartphone or tablet to complete a 30-minute "Student Athlete Concussion Test Battery" comprised of several cognitive function, including memory, attention and decision making, psychological well-being, concussion symptom, and physical activity assessments, which is created and administered through the SOMA mobile application.

During the first year of the study, student-athletes who report a sport-related concussion will be contacted, encouraged to speak with their doctor, and asked to complete a semi-structured interview. The interview will be transcribed and analysed through thematic analysis to understand the impact sport-related concussion has on the university student-athletes life, including but not limited to, academic performances and reasons for wanting to continue sport.

After the first academic year, participants who did not experience a concussion will be randomly split into a control group and a cognitive training group. The cognitive training group will use SOMA to complete various cognitive tasks throughout the summer, and pilot testing will be used to determine duration, frequency, and intensity of the cognitive tasks. After the second academic year, the data from each group regarding frequency of concussion and its impact on cognitive functioning will be compared, showing if cognitive training can reduce the effect of concussion on cognitive function.

There are also a few anticipated outcomes of this study. One being the spread of education and promotion of using mobile applications, such as our partner SOMA, to lead healthy lifestyles. Another is that the profile, called our "Athlete Psychological Passport," that measures student-athletes' cognitive function and symptoms, created for each participant, can help determine their individualized "return to learn" and "return to play" protocols, identify academic support that may be needed, and overall improve student-athletes' well-being.