Purpose: The objective of this study is to investigate the degree of knowledge that sports chiropractors have in regard to concussion diagnosis and management.
Methods: An online, previously-used survey was administered to Sport Chiropractic Fellows...
Purpose: The objective of this study is to investigate the degree of knowledge that sports chiropractors have in regard to concussion diagnosis and management.
Methods: An online, previously-used survey was administered to Sport Chiropractic Fellows from the Royal College of Chiropractic Sports Sciences - Canada (n = 44). This survey, which was scored from 0 to 9, asked nine questions regarding participants’ concussion knowledge. The number of correct responses was used as the concussion knowledge score.
Results: Sport chiropractors scored slightly higher on the survey when compared to chiropractic residents (mean = 5.57 vs. 5.25; t = 2.12; p = 0.04) and to fourth year chiropractic interns (mean = 5.57 vs 5.2; t = 2.45; p = 0.02), and the difference was statistically significant. Gender, personal concussion history, previous acutely concussed patient experience, and post concussive patient syndrome experience were not predictive of the number of questions answered correctly. As an alternative method of scoring the survey, we scored Part 2 of the questionnaire (concussion knowledge) by giving a point for each correct selection. This method measured the level of knowledge better than considering all correct answers as one point. The average score of the respondents was 29.84 out of 35 or 85.26% (SD = 2.93, 95% CI = 28.97, 30.71). With this method of scoring, the sport chiropractors did well. A few knowledge gaps were identified in the sample population.
Conclusions: Sports chiropractors prove to possess the skills and knowledge to diagnose and manage concussion. However, although sports chiropractors excel at identifying the definition and mechanism of concussion, knowledge gaps regarding diagnosis and management of concussion were found in the sample population.