Pac-12 CARE-Affiliated Program: structure, methods and initial results

Adam D Bohr; Doug F Aukerman; Kimberly G Harmon; Russell Romano; Theresa D Hernández; Niki Konstantinides; David J Petron; Jamshid Ghajar; Christopher Giza; Sourav K Poddar; Matthew B McQueen

doi:10.1136/bmjsem-2021-001055

Pac-12 CARE-Affiliated Program: structure, methods and initial results

BMJ Open Sport Exerc Med. 2021 May 19;7(2):e001055. doi: 10.1136/bmjsem-2021-001055. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Integrative Physiology, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA.
² Sports Medicine, Samaritan Health Services & Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA.
³ Family Medicine and Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.
⁴ Athletic Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA.
⁵ Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA.
⁶ Department of Orthopaedics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.
⁷ Neurosurgery, Brain Performance Center, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.
⁸ Pediatrics and Neurosurgery, University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA.
⁹ Family Medicine and Orthopedics, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, Colorado, USA.

Abstract

Sport-related concussion has garnered increasing scientific attention and research over the last decade. Collegiate student-athletes represent an important cohort in this field. As such, the Pac-12 CARE-Affiliated Program (CAP) was formed in 2017 as a regional hub of the Concussion Assessment, Research and Education (CARE) consortium. CAP is multisite, prospective, longitudinal study that aims to improve student-athlete health by identifying factors associated with concussion incidence and recovery and using this knowledge to inform best clinical practices and policy decisions. CAP employed a staggered rollout across the Pac-12, with the first four institutions enrolling in fall 2018. After receiving institutional review board (IRB) approval, these institutions began consenting student-athletes to share clinical concussion and baseline data for research purposes. Athletes completed baseline testing that included a medical questionnaire, concussion history and a battery for clinical concussion assessments. Concussed student-athletes were given the same battery of assessments in addition to full injury and return to play reports. Clinicians at each university worked with a data coordinator to ensure appropriate reporting, and the Pac-12 Concussion Coordinating Unit at the University of Colorado Boulder provided oversight for quality control of the data study wide. During year 1, CAP consented 2181 student-athletes and tracked 140 concussions. All research was conducted with the appropriate IRB approval across the participating Pac-12 institutions. Data security and dissemination are managed by the Presagia Sports Athlete Electronic Health Record software (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) and QuesGen Systems (San Francisco, California, USA).

Keywords: concussion; injury; sport.