What is the survey about? Do NZ concussion clinicians use clinical practice guidelines? What do they like or dislike about currently available guidelines? Are there gaps? What makes a guideline useful? These are some of the things we are seeking more information about in our new study.

Concussion is a very common injury and while most people do well and recover uneventfully, for some recovery can last a long time and can be very distressing and disruptive.  In New Zealand we have services funded by ACC for assisting people recover from concussion. However there is a lot of information floating around about concussion management and the body of research is growing exponentially.  That means there is a lot of evidence out there for clinicians to integrate into their practice, not all of it necessarily of the best quality. 

What are clinical practice guidelines? Clinical practice guidelines are one way research evidence is ‘packaged’ so it is easy to use by healthcare providers. However there are a range of different concussion guidelines available and not all clinicians find it easy to choose between them or find them helpful and we want to know more about why this might be. 

Take the survey: In our survey (see link below) we ask questions about barriers and facilitators to guideline use by concussion clinicians.  Based on pilot feedback, the survey will take five-10 minutes of your time and your responses will be anonymous. Please send the link to others you know who work with concussion – the more responses we get the more confident we will feel about the findings.  Thank you in advance for your thoughts. We will circulate the findings once these have been analysed – here’s the link to the survey: 

https://is.gd/concussionguidelines

Thank you!