Chris Vaughan, PsyD, SNS Fellow and current treasurer, collaborated with other SNS members, Maegan
Sady, PhD and Gerry Gioia, PhD to recently publish the article titled Association Between Early Return to
School Following Acute Concussion and Symptom Burden at 2 Weeks Postinjury in JAMA Open in January
of 2023. In this cohort study, data from over 1600 youth aged 5 to 18 were collected across 9 pediatric
emergency departments in Canada as part of the PERC 5P Concussion study. Results showed that older
youth missed more days of school, on average, than younger individuals [5-7=2.61; 8-12=3.26; 13-
18=4.71] and that an early return to school was associated with a lower symptom burden at 14-days
post-injury in the 8-12 and 13-18 age groups.
“This study gives important insights on the treatment needs for children, specifically related to
returning to school. If an early return to school does somehow lower symptom-burden and ultimately
improve recovery, as this study suggests, this work will provide clinicians greater knowledge to apply
when treating families and will help generate hypotheses for researchers to help study how and why an
early return to school is associated with a faster concussion recovery.” says Christopher Vaughan, Psy.D.,
neuropsychologist at Children’s National Hospital and the study’s lead author. Dr. Vaughan further
cautions “This study is not able to tell us when a specific child with a concussion should go back to
school, as that is likely to be based on a number of individual factors including the severity of the injury,
the knowledge and supports available within the school, and other individual factors specific to that
child. What this research does likely tell is that there are a number of benefits for youth going back to
school as soon as they are able, and that missing more time from school after concussion is not
something that we should generally recommend unless it appears to be absolutely necessary for specific
reasons.”
The full article can be retrieved through the JAMA Open website at:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2800690