The Impact of Concussion History on Cognitive and Emotional Depression and Post-Concussive Symptoms in Adolescent Athletes

Abstract

Concussions pose serious risks to those who incur them, particularly in adolescents. The developmental milestones of this cohort expose them to prolonged risks of negative physiological and psychological symptoms. This study explored the relationship between concussion history and the subdomains of cognitive and emotional symptoms of the Post-Concussive Symptom Scale (PCSS) and Mood and Feelings Questionnaire (MFQ) measures in an adolescent athlete population with a hypothesis of significant differences in measure scores between prior concussion history and no prior concussion history groups. Participants (N = 155) between the ages of 13-18 years were analyzed, with (n = 49) reporting a history of prior concussion and (n = 106) reporting no history of prior concussion. Higher PCSS item 13 scores were observed in participants with prior concussion history through descriptive statistics (M = 0.78, SD = 1.46), when compared to participants with no such history (M = 0.34, SD = 0.88). Additional significant differences for this variable were detected through ANOVA F (1, 153) = 5.29, p = .023. Effect size estimates demonstrated a small effect, with eta-squared = .033 and omega-squared = .027. Variability was present in the precision of estimates as measured by confidence intervals. A multivariate analysis of variance indicated no further significant differences in other cognitive or emotional subdomain variables across groups F (18, 136) = 1.56, p = .080. Variability in the dataset was observed via Levene’s Test of Equality of Variances, with unequal variances found for PCSS 12, PCSS 13, and MFQ 22 items. Findings suggest a modest relationship between concussion history and cognitive symptom severity in PCSS 13 scores. There was no clear evidence of broader interactions on other cognitive or emotional symptoms. Additional research is needed to investigate emotional and cognitive symptom severity and concussion history relationships without the methodological concerns of small effect sizes and unequal variances present in this study due to the limitations of secondary analysis.