Abstract

There are millions of concussions each year and the number of symptoms or severity of a sport related concussion vary significantly. Recently there is more evidence for fear avoidance being associated with the number of symptoms reported, in the chronic stage. The purpose of this thesis was to assess acute concussions in athletes using the SCAT5 as well as fear avoidance, catastrophizing, depression, and anxiety. Main Outcomes and Measures: We assessed 34 athletes’ concussions using the SCAT5, overall general health using the Short Form General Health Survey (SF36), pain catastrophizing using the Pain Catastrophizing Scale, fear avoidance using the Athlete Fear Avoidance Questionnaire (AFAQ), and anxiety and depression using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Questionnaire. Results: The participants had an average of 7.4 5.1 total number of symptoms and 16.3 17.0 symptom severity score on the SCAT5. The total number of symptoms reported on the SCAT5 was associated with the AFAQ score (r=0.493). The symptom severity score was associated with the AFAQ score (r=0.481). The total number of symptoms reported on the SCAT5 was associated with the HADS score (r=0.686). The symptom severity score was associated with the HADS score (r=0.602). The AFAQ score, HADS depression and HADS anxiety scores model was a significant predictor of the total number of symptoms reported on the SCAT5, accounting for 50.4% of the variance (p>0.001), and a significant predictor of the severity of symptoms reported on the SCAT5, accounting for of the 41% of the variance (p=0.001). Discussion: Our study identified a significant relationship between athlete fear avoidance and the number of concussion symptoms and the severity of the symptoms. A higher fear avoidance means that patients report more symptoms, and this relationship could explain why there is variability in the reporting of concussion symptoms.