Melancholy thoughts

A History of Previous Severe Injury and Health-Related Quality of Life Among Former Collegiate Athletes

CONTEXT

Empirical evidence supports the idea that previous severe injuries in former collegiate athletes may adversely affect their ability to participate in daily activities later in life, which may then decrease their health-related quality of life (HRQOL).

OBJECTIVE

To assess the influences of previous severe injuries on the HRQOL of former National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) athletes.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional study.

SETTING

Online survey.

PATIENTS OR OTHER PARTICIPANTS

A total of 171 former NCAA collegiate athletes (69 men, 102 women; age = 29.7 ± 3.9 years, height = 171.5 ± 10.4 cm, mass = 76.4 ± 12.9 kg) participated. All individuals completed a demographics questionnaire and the Short Form-36 version 2 (SF-36v2) Health Survey via Qualtrics.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S)

The dependent variables were the physical composite and mental composite summary scores and the 8 subscales of the SF-36v2. The independent variable was the presence of previous severe injury (history of a severe injury or no history of a severe injury during collegiate athletics). Two multivariate analyses of variance were conducted. The first multivariate analysis of variance was conducted for the 8 SF-36v2 subscales and the second for the 2 summary scores.

RESULTS

For the summary scores and all 8 SF-36v2 subscales, the responses were worse for the 103 former collegiate athletes who sustained a previous severe injury compared with the 68 who did not sustain a severe injury. The largest difference between groups was for the physical composite score, with a mean difference of 15.8 points (1.5 standard deviations worse than the US population); the physical functioning subscale demonstrated a mean difference of 12.9 points (1.3 standard deviations worse than the US population).

CONCLUSIONS

A majority of the athletes in our sample had experienced a severe injury. Based on these data, previous severe injuries had a negative influence on the HRQOL of former NCAA collegiate athletes.

Current Physical and Mental Health of Former Collegiate Athletes

Background:

There is a dearth of research on the current health of former collegiate athletes.

Purpose:

To examine the current health and related correlates in a cohort of former collegiate athletes who played in a diverse range of men’s and women’s sports with various levels of contact.

Study Design:

Cross-sectional study; Level of evidence, 3.

Methods:

Former collegiate athletes (N = 3657) were asked to complete an online questionnaire addressing sports history, medical history, and demographics. The questionnaire also included the Veterans RAND 12-Item Health Survey (VR-12), which yielded 2 composite scores for physical (PCS) and mental (MCS) health. The VR-12 PCS and MCS scores were compared with published US normative data using t tests and analyses of variance.

Results:

Mean PCS and MCS scores of the 797 respondents with complete data (21.9% of target sample; average, 14.5 years since last played collegiate sport) were 53.0 ± 6.1 and 51.7 ± 9.4, respectively. When stratified by age and sex, PCS and MCS scores were similar to normative scores in the United States. Lower PCS scores were associated with sustaining ≥3 concussions, playing in collision sports during college, and sustaining a career-ending injury (all, P < .001). No association was found between concussion and MCS scores (P = .06). Among former collegiate athletes, prevalent medical conditions included anxiety (16.2%), hypercholesterolemia/high cholesterol (10.6%), and depression (10.4%). Additionally, 5.8% screened positive for alcohol dependence, and 5.8% screened positive for disordered eating (eg, binge eating, purging). These findings were more prevalent than those reported by the World Health Organization as representative of the US population. Conversely, there was a lower prevalence of depression, bipolar disorders, and attention deficit disorder, with or without hyperactivity (ADD/ADHD), than in the World Health Organization US population data sample.

Conclusion:

Former collegiate athletes appear similar to the general US population on many aspects of mental and physical health. However, observed health deficits associated with previous sports injuries warrant ongoing monitoring of the health and well-being of former collegiate athletes.

The relationship among neurocognitive performances and biopsychosocial characteristics of elite National Football League draft picks: an exploratory investigation

Sports neuropsychology has emerged as a specialty area within the field of clinical neuropsychology. The role of the sports neuropsychologist, rooted in baseline and post-concussion testing, has evolved to include other clinical domains, including the clinical assessment of potential draft picks. There is no published information on the neurocognitive characteristics of these draft picks. We sought to determine whether elite NFL draft picks differed from NFL roster athletes on neurocognitive (ImPACT) and biopsychosocial characteristics, and given that no published data exists for this population, adopted null hypotheses. Null hypotheses were rejected for two of the four ImPACT scores, as elite draft picks scored higher on measures of visual motor speed and reaction time than roster NFL athletes. Subtle but distinct neurocognitive differences are noted when comparing elite NFL draft picks with norms from a cumulative roster of a single NFL team.