Exploring Psychedelic Usage in Athletes and Attitudes Towards Psilocybin Use in Concussion Recovery
Date
2023-10-13
Authors
VanderZwaag, Baeleigh
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Abstract
Introduction: Given the prevalence of sports-related concussions in athletes across Canada and the United States of America and the debilitating nature of persisting post-concussion symptoms, novel rehabilitation and symptom management approaches are necessary research endeavours. I include a scoping review that I co-authored on the literature pertaining to psilocybin’s effects on cognition and creativity as a precursor to the empirical study of my thesis. This study aims to examine the willingness of the sports community to engage with psilocybin-assisted therapy (PAT) for concussion recovery and the management of persisting post-concussion symptoms (PPCS), while also providing current psychedelic use rates among a sample of athletes and examining the motivations for using psychedelics in this population.
Methods: Athletes and sports team staff completed an online survey through Qualtrics with three sections: demographics, substance use history, and attitudes and willingness to use/support PAT for concussion recovery. Path analysis was used to assess direct effects and mediations of age, education, past psychedelic use, personality openness (assessed using the Ten-Item Personality Inventory) knowledge, attitudes, and concussion history (athlete model only).
Results: This sample consisted of 175 respondents (n = 85 athletes; n = 90 staff) from Canada and the US. The most common substances used in the past year among athletes were alcohol (90.6%) cannabis (43.6%), and psychedelics (35.8%). However, regular psychedelic use (use > 2 times per week) was quite low in athletes (7.5%). Just over half of our athletes had sustained a concussion at some point in their life with 64.6% of those athletes sustaining two or more concussions. The path analysis for the athlete model revealed significant paths from age to willingness (β = .19, SE = .01, p < .01), knowledge to willingness (β = .37, SE = .14, p < .01), attitudes to willingness (β = .33, SE = .11, p < .01), attitudes to knowledge (β = .34, SE = .12, p < .01), attitudes to psychedelic experience (β = .52, SE = .38, p < .001), and knowledge to psychedelic experience (β = .46, SE = .33, p < .001). There were also significant indirect effects between past psychedelic experience and willingness (β = .17, p < .01), and past psychedelic experience and attitudes (β = .16, p < .01), where knowledge was a mediator between both interactions. The staff path model revealed significant paths from knowledge to willingness (β = .32, SE = .12, p < .01), attitudes to willingness (β = .32, SE = .11, p < .01), attitudes to knowledge (β = .51, SE = .09, p < .001), attitudes to past psychedelic experience (β = .27, SE = .38, p < .01), and knowledge to psychedelic experience (β = .27, SE = .38, p < .01). There was a significant indirect effect between past psychedelic experience and attitudes (β = .14 p < .05) with knowledge as a mediator.
Conclusions: The results of the survey found that many athlete respondents used psychedelics in the past year, but few athletes use them regularly. Of psychedelics used, psilocybin is the most commonly used and athletes reported using psychedelics primarily for personal improvement and mood enhancement. The results of the path analysis suggest that knowledge of psilocybin and attitudes towards psilocybin are predictive of both athlete and staff willingness to use or support PAT. These findings suggest that it may be feasible for researchers to begin clinical studies to examine if psilocybin has any effect on concussion recovery and PPCS.
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Keywords
psilocybin, psychedelics, sports-related concussion, mTBI