Thirteenth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

Concussion education materials are critical to the health and safety of collegiate student-athletes, yet research consistently shows these materials are unnecessarily complex and inaccessible. The current project draws upon the Health Literacy (i.e., one’s ability to obtain, process, and understand health-related information leading to appropriate health decisions) and Readability (i.e., information being presented in a way that is accessible for the intended audience) theoretical frameworks in an effort to beget concussion education protocols better suited for collegiate-athlete’s varying health literacy levels. Practical and theoretical applications in communication studies and health sciences are explored by focusing on intersections of individual health literacy levels, the readability of concussion education materials, and prior exposure to concussions. The current study’s method consisted of two components: 1) quantitative survey of the health literacy levels of 353 collegiate student-athletes, and 2) readability analysis of the concussion education materials (via Flesh-Kincaid Grade Level report) used by the Sports Medicine department at the authors’ home institution. Results showed that 38.1% of the sample demonstrated limited health literacy, holding consistent with national trends in the United States. However, the concussion education materials presented to the student-athletes produced readability scores between 11th and 12th-grade levels, indicating that the materials were not accessible to all student-athletes. This is problematic given that student-athletes’ ability to identify concussion-related symptoms holds long-term health implications for them. Future research should investigate ways to integrate social- and multi-media applications designed for collegiate athletes, in lieu of complex and static written/oral concussion education materials.