March's Thought: Why does concussion advice need to be user-centered?

Moving on from why concussion education is important… let’s talk about our 2nd key insight. User-centered.

Awareness, education and guidance about concussion needs to be relevant and applicable to the user– or they will go back to sport or work too soon (I’m speaking from experience!)

Our interviews and focus groups with university students, highlighted that government concussion guidance felt vague, lacked empathy and disconnected from students’ realities.

They had deadlines to meet, were living independently for the first time and did not want to miss out on university experiences.

Concussed student-athletes rated academic support as their highest need, far above return to play (Graph 1). This highlighted distinct priorities for students compared to those outlined in government guidelines. 

Graph 1 - Hierarchy of needs analysis for concussed student athletes' recovery.

What is more concerning about the lack of return-to-learn protocol in government guidelines, is that research found premature return-to-learn results in a relapse of symptoms in 42% of cases[1] . This highlights the importance of providing return to learn AND return to play advice, particularly, in a user group where they are living dual lives as athletes and as students. However, the same principle applies across school sport and grassroots sport, where sport is not the only thing going on in the athlete’s life.

Worryingly, these deficits continued in after-care support or when athletes did seek a diagnosis, with 89% of survey respondents corroborating that their university doesn’t provide information on where to find support.

Student stories revealed the only post-diagnosis advice they received was to return to sport after two weeks. With lab work to complete and deadlines to meet, students felt they were left to their own devices, with no management plan of how to recover from the injury.

“I was told to rest and not look at screens, but I had exams starting in two weeks.” UoB Student Athlete (2024)

These testimonies highlighted a sordid tale. On top of already lacking knowledge, student athletes feel unsupported.

Concussion Toolkit aimed to plugs these gaps. Responding to the unique challenges faced by student athletes we developed a return-to-learn procedure, co-designed WITH students.

Our Concussion Toolkit, with Return-to-Learn advice and improved clarity and specificity, makes our guidelines easy to follow for the user and provides them with a management plan to self-manage their concussion, plugging the gap between a lack of post diagnosis support/management plan and a lack of student specific advice.

This insight highlights the importance of designing with the user, as well as the power of storytelling to understand what the concussion recovery experience is actually like; numbers do not highlight what it is that athletes actually need after sustaining a concussion.

By using qualitative data to uncover individuals’ experiences, we can create accessible protocols that different user groups can resonate with. Real people need guidance relevant to themselves so that they don’t rush back to sport or work too soon, as I found myself doing.

This insight is why we provide USER-CENTERED concussion recovery education and guidance.

We always want to hear your concussion experiences to improve the guidance we offer – what helped you, what didn’t? What were you confused about? What did you need?

Contact us below at:

hello@concussiontoolkit.co.uk

References

[1] Carson, J. D., Diep, D., Baker, C., Kraft, S. A., Kuwahara, N., Garel, A., and Frémont, P. (2022). Relapse of

concussion symptoms in the context of premature return to learn and return to play: Comparative analysis

of 2006 to 2011 and 2011 to 2016. Canadian Family Physician, 68(3), pp.e87-e91.