Grant: Project Grant

Emotional changes such as sadness and anxiety are common following concussions. One third of children with concussion continue to experience symptoms for more than a month. Concussion can affect youth's confidence in their abilities to manage stressful events, lower children's quality of life, and may prevent or curtail participation in activities such as schoolwork, socializing, and sports. The ability to adapt to the injury, and regulate emotions and stress is important to reduce the risk of prolonged symptoms. Early psychological intervention may improve one's ability to adapt post-injury, resulting in greater acceptance of change, reduced stress, and recovery of emotional and cognitive symptoms. There have been some promising studies showing the benefit of counselling in concussion, but barriers such as waitlist, or cost, prevent generalizability. A pragmatic immediately available (no wait time) solution is needed. Mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) has been shown to improve coping skills, depression, anxiety, and attentional focus. This study will determine if MBI delivered via a smartphone application ('app') results in lower post-concussion symptoms. We believe that using the app will foster adaptive skills with the goal of reducing stress, regulating emotions, and thus reducing post-concussive symptoms. We will measure postconcussion symptoms using standard concussion self-report questionnaires. Our results will validate the app-based MBI which promises an innovative preventive and accessible concussion treatment into the homes of all youths, thus increasing access to cutting-edge therapies.