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Keywords

Clinical Practice in Athletic Training

Abstract

Context: The diagnosis of concussions is largely reliant on subjective information in conjunction with objective measures that might not be the most valid and/or reliable. There is now new research being performed evaluating the use of biological indicators, or biomarkers in the diagnosis and management of concussion. However, the amount of knowledge about biomarkers among athletic trainers is unknown. Additionally, the barriers preventing ATs from using such biomarkers has yet to be studied. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine athletic trainers’ familiarity with and their attitude towards concussion biomarkers, while evaluating specific barriers preventing their use in current clinical practices. Methods: The design of this study was a phenomenological qualitative research design. The participants for this study were recruited from a previous survey-based study in which participants were recruited through the National Athletic Trainer’s Association (NATA) research survey service. Additionally, social media and snowball sampling were used to increase recruitment efforts. From this, there were several participants that stated they would be willing to participate in follow-up research. Then, a total of 11 participants, all of which were certified athletic trainers, comprised of five females and six males, were chosen at random to be part of the research. Data was collected via Zoom (Zoom Video Communications. Version 5.13. San Jose, CA: Yuan, Eric; 2022) interviews. All participants were asked the same nine questions by the same interviewer. The interviews were converted from speech to text transcripts, which were then reviewed by three additional researchers. Following that review, the participants were sent their transcripts to make any changes and/or provide clarifications. The final step was to go through each transcript as a research group and code each line by a theme and subcategory. Results: There were four themes total that were found within the transcripts. Each theme had at least two subcategories. The specific theme that is the focus of this presentation is “barriers specific to biomarker use”. Within this theme, there were four subcategories, which were setting/population specific, resources, training, and cost. The order in which they are listed is from most lines coded to the least. There were 70 total words/phrases coded under setting/population specific, 59 under resources, 34 under training, and 21 under cost. Conclusions: Based on the results, it can be concluded that the amount of knowledge varies among athletic trainers, but most participants have a broad idea about what biomarkers are. It can also be concluded that athletic trainers see the potential of biomarker use but have concerns due to the various barriers discussed. Overall, athletic trainers need to see improvements in budgets, specific training, and more specific resources to effectively implement biomarkers into their concussion diagnosis and management practices. Many of the participants expressed concerns regarding not having the appropriate setting for such tools to be implemented, like a secondary school that does not typically have a large budget for the sports medicine department, as well as the appropriate and/or supportive stakeholders. Add in the gray areas about the resources that are needed to implement biomarkers and what the process would look like, as well as what training outside of athletic training would be, and athletic trainers feel left in the dark. While they have a generally positive view on the future of biomarkers, they do not know how it would come to fruition with these barriers.

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