Peer-reviewed article
Shared Decision-Making Within Families About Returning to Sport After Recovery From Concussion: Exploring Parent and Adolescent Perspectives.
Kroshus E, Opel DJ, Jinguji TM, Steiner MK, Senturia K et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study explored how families make decisions about whether adolescents should return to sports after a concussion. Researchers interviewed 16 people from 8 families (parents and teenagers separately) who had experienced sports-related concussions. Adolescents saw themselves as the main decision-maker, while parents looked to clinicians to confirm safety. The study found that teenagers focused mainly on getting back to sport quickly, while parents were influenced by beliefs about sport's importance for their child's identity and goals.
Key points
- Adolescents positioned themselves as the primary decision-maker in the parent-clinician-adolescent triad
- Parents relied on clinicians to affirm that adolescent preferences were safe
- Adolescents focused on short-term benefits of returning to sport and did not always consider viable alternative activities
- Parent preferences were shaped by beliefs about sport's role in their child's identity and achievement of sport-related goals
- Parents and adolescents had different decision inputs, showing interdependence within families in meeting decision needs
Limitations
The study involved only 8 families from a tertiary sports medicine setting, limiting generalizability to more diverse populations and settings. The research is exploratory and descriptive, so it cannot establish causal relationships or provide population-level prevalence data about decision-making patterns.
Abstract
Purpose Exploring the shared decision-making inputs and needs of families (parents and adolescents) about returning to sport after recovering from a sports-related concussion. Methods Individual interviews were conducted separately with members of 8 adolescent-parent dyads (n = 16). All adolescent participants had been diagnosed with a sports-related concussion in the past 2 years and received tertiary sports medicine care. Results Adolescents saw themselves as the decision-maker within the parent-clinician-adolescent triad, and parents relied on clinicians to affirm that adolescent preferences were "safe." Adolescents were largely focused on short-term benefits of returning to sport, assumed that their parents were asking clinicians the "right questions" about safety, and, in many cases, did not have what they considered to be viable alternative activities to the sport where they were injured. Parent beliefs about the benefits of sport, including the role of sport in their child's identity and the importance of sport-related goals, helped explain parent preferences for their child's return to play. Discussion Parents and adolescents had different decision inputs, and there was interdependence within families in how decision needs were met. Additional research is needed with more representative samples to further explore this complexity and how it can inform shared decision-making theory and practice.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Qualitative exploration of shared decision-making processes within families regarding return to sport after concussion
- Population
- 8 adolescent-parent dyads (n=16) who had experienced sports-related concussion in past 2 years and received tertiary sports medicine care
Key finding
Adolescents saw themselves as the decision-maker within the parent-clinician-adolescent triad
E et al. · Europe PMC · 10 Jul 2026