The Influence of Athletic Identity, Passion, and Perceptions of Severity of Concussions on Athletes' Willingness to Report Concussion Symptoms.

CONTEXT: The influence of several psychological characteristics on the willingness of athletes to report concussion behaviors has not been well explored. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to understand how athletic identity and sport passion predicted participants' willingness to report symptoms above what was explained by athlete demographics, concussion knowledge, and perceived seriousness of concussions. DESIGN: The study was cross-sectional. METHODS: Three-hundred and twenty-two male and female high school and club sport athletes completed survey measures of concussion knowledge, athletic identity, harmonious and obsessive passion, and degree to which athletes indicated they would report concussions and concussion symptoms. RESULTS: Athletes scored moderately high on their knowledge of symptoms and other concussion information (mean = 16.21; ± = 2.88) and above the midpoint on their attitudes and behaviors toward reporting concussion symptoms (mean = 3.64; ± = 0.70). There were no differences between gender, t(299) = -.78, P = .44, and previous concussion education, t(296) = 1.93, P = .06, related to concussion knowledge. Results of a hierarchical regression indicated that after entering athlete demographics, concussion knowledge, and perceived seriousness of concussions, of the 3 psychological variables in the final stage of the model, only obsessive passion was a significant predictor of athlete's attitudes to report a concussion. CONCLUSIONS: Perceived seriousness of concussion, perceived threat to long-term health, and obsessive passion were the strongest predictors of athlete's willingness to report concussions. Athletes who did not believe concussions posed a threat to their current or future health, and those that held an obsessive passion for sport were most at risk for not reporting concussions. Future research should continue to investigate the relationship between reporting behaviors and psychological factors.

Test-retest reproducibility of quantitative CBF measurements using FAIR perfusion MRI and acetazolamide challenge.

The reproducibility of quantitative cerebral blood flow (CBF) measurements using MRI with arterial spin labeling and acetazolamide challenge was assessed in 12 normal subjects, each undergoing the identical experimental procedure on two separate days. CBF was measured on a 1.5T scanner using a flow-sensitive alternating inversion recovery (FAIR) pulse sequence, performed both at baseline and 12 min after intravenous administration of acetazolamide. T(1) was measured in conjunction with the FAIR scan in order to calculate quantitative CBF. The CBF maps were segmented to separate gray matter (GM) from white matter (WM) for region-of-interest (ROI) analyses. Post- acetazolamide CBF values (ml/100 g/min, mean +/- SD) of 87.5 +/- 12.5 (GM) and 46.1 +/- 10.8 (WM) represented percent increases of 37.7% +/- 24.4% (GM) and 40.1% +/- 24.4% (WM). Day-to-day differences in baseline CBF were -1.7 +/- 6.9 (GM) and -1.4 +/- 4.7 (WM) or, relative to the mean CBF over both days for each subject, -2.5% +/- 11.7% (GM) and -3.8% +/- 13.6% (WM) Day- to-day differences in absolute post-ACZ CBF increase were -2.5 +/- 6.8 (GM) and 2.7 +/- 9.4 (WM) or, relative to the mean CBF increase over both days for each subject, -4.7% +/- 13.3% (GM) and 9.1% +/- 26.2% (WM). Thus, FAIR- based CBF measurements show satisfactory reproducibility from day to day, but with sufficient variation to warrant caution in interpreting longitudinal data. The hemispheric asymmetry of baseline CBF and post-acetazolamide CBF increases varied within a narrower range and should be sensitive to small changes related to disease or treatment.