Case
Abstract
As concussions continue to increase as a public health concern among the adolescent population, it is necessary to understand health care professionals’ current concussion management practices during the recovery process. Substantial research has focused on safely returning student-athletes to activity, yet little evidence is available regarding current practices to return adolescents to the classroom prior to return-to-activity. As health care professionals, our research team was interested in understanding the role of school nurses as part of the concussion management team in the secondary school setting. Based on our previous research experiences, we determined a multimethodological approach, including both survey and qualitative research designs, would be most appropriate to collect meaningful data to answer our research questions. Incorporating a multimethodological approach required consideration of several factors as well as significant planning during the various phases of the overall research project. Our multimethodological approach used to collect meaningful data among school nurses was successful, and we have continued to use this approach to collect data among other health care professionals and school personnel involved in the concussion management process for student-athletes in the secondary school setting.
