Loss and recovery after concussion: Adolescent patients give voice to their concussion experience

Abstract

Background: Most concussion studies have focused on the perspectives and expertise of health-care providers and caregivers. Very little qualitative research has been done, engaging the adolescents who have suffered concussion and continue to experience the consequences in their everyday life. Objective: To understand the experiences of recovery from the perspective of adolescent patients of concussion and to present the findings through their voices. Methods: Two semi-structured focus groups and two narrative interviews were conducted with a small group of 7 adolescents. Grounded theory was used to analyse the data. Results: Participants experience continuing difficulty 1-5 years after treatment with cognitive, emotional, social and mental well-being. The overriding experience among older adolescents (17-20) is a sense of irreversibility of the impact of concussion in all these areas. Conclusion: There is a significant gap between the medical determination of recovery and what patients understand as recovery. Adolescents do not feel ‘recovered’ more than a year after they are clinically assessed as ‘good to go’. Systematic follow-up and support from a multi-disciplinary health-care team would strengthen youths' coping and resilience.