Personality, Coping Strategies, and Mental Health in High-Performance Athletes During Confinement Derived From the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 outbreak has affected the sports field unprecedentedly. The emergency alert has deprived athletes of training in a suitable environment, as they are faced with cancellations of relevant events in their sports careers. This situation can cause stress levels and other emotional disorders similar to those experienced by athletes during periods of injury. Since the relationship between psychological factors and sports injuries is well-studied, the Global Psychological Model of Sports Injury (MGPLD) is applied to this historical situation for athletes. The purpose of this study was to analyze the relationships between perfectionism and trait anxiety with indicators of mental health (mood, depression, state anxiety, and stress) in high-performance athletes during confinement due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as to explore the coping strategies that athletes have applied and whether they are perceived as useful for managing negative emotional states. A cross-sectional study was conducted through online questionnaires during April 2020, adapting the Psychological Assessment Protocol of the High-Performance Sports Center of Murcia (Spain), to assess the psychological effects of confinement in a cross-cultural sample of 310 athletes (141 women and 169 men) from different countries in Europe, Asia, and America, and from diverse sports disciplines. The protocol comprised six instruments that test perfectionism, trait anxiety, mood states, stress, depression, coping strategies, and sleep. It was answered online via Google Forms. The results show that maladaptive perfectionism was related to all the indicators of athletes' mental health. However, athletes' levels of anxiety, stress, and depressive symptoms are relatively low, and the use of coping strategies such as cognitive restructuring and emotional calm was associated with lower levels of negative emotional states. Besides, the Iceberg Profile, a suitable fit for the mental health model, is observed in the mood of athletes, both in men and in women, although women showed higher levels of anxiety, stress, and depression than men. A strong relationship was observed between maladaptive perfectionism and martial arts sports discipline, superior to other sports. In short, it can be concluded that high-performance athletes in the studied sample showed negative emotional state values below the expected average. Finally, the proposals for practical applications of the results collected are discussed.

Psychological States and Training Habits during the COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown in Spanish Basketball Athletes

“…Their training is less disrupted because they can control and manage their emotions more effectively. By contrast, depression, although reported to be lower in athletes than in non-athletes [31,32], was found to be a predictor of lower performance. This condition has been widespread during lockdown [20].…”

“…Non-specific training raised the athletes' mood [6] and well-being [30], partly because it allowed them to recover from injury. It has been reported that athletes in training presented lower levels of depression and anxiety than non-athletes [31,32].…”

Variations in the Mood States during the Different Phases of COVID-19’s Lockdown in Young Athletes

“…Due to the home lockdown and subsequent de-escalation decreed by the Government of Spain on 15 March 2020 as a result of the pandemic situation caused by SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 (Spain, 2020), sports competitions, training and sports activities were canceled for a great part of that period. This situation with no training and competition could have affected the physical health, mental health and mood states of athletes [1] and could, in some cases, have generated moderate and high levels of stress [2], depression [3] and anxiety [4]. Studies such as that of Leguizamo et al [2] point out that, in terms of emotional distress, a situation of lockdown could be compared to a period of injury.…”

Psychological Distress and Psychosocial Factors in the Non-Formal Context of Basketball Coaches in Times of the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…New epidemics can cause considerable damage to countries, companies and individuals at different levels [32]. In this line, the sanitary emergency has deprived coaches and players of continuing with their usual routines, which can cause stress levels related to anxiety compared to those experienced on a daily basis [33,34], as well as other derived problems that have some similarities with those suffered by athletes during the different phases of a sports injury [35].…”

“…There is research that analyzes the psychosocial problems affecting athletes [35,[55][56][57] but few or nonexistent research that analyzes the levels of stress suffered by coaches. For this reason, this research focuses on determining the level of psychological risks and analyzing the psychosocial risks of basketball coaches in their professional development during the current 2020-2021 season characterized by the COVID-19 pandemic conditions.…”