Professional athletes have higher anxiety levels during COVID-19 outbreak compared to recreational athletes and sedentary people

Abstract

Object ve: Although the COVID-19 outbreak affected almost all the people globally, the number of studies investigating the effects on professional athletes are very low. Therefore, we aimed to examine anxiety levels, mental toughness and daily habits of professional and recreational athletes during the early phase of the pandemic and compare these with sedentary control objects.Mater als and Methods: 634 participants were evaluated in April 2020 with an online survey consisted of sociodemographic data, exercise habits and outbreak-related questions, along with Turkish versions of Sports Mental Toughness Questionnaire (SMTQ) and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). 329 of the participants were professional athletes, 135 were recreational athletes and 170 were sedentary people.Results: Professional athletes (PROs) scored significantly higher (p<0.017) than recreatio-nal athletes (RECRs) and sedentary people (SEDs) on SMTQ and State-Anxiety Scores, but not on Trait-Anxiety Score (p˃0.05). Besides, there were no significant differences between RECRs and SEDs on any of the scores (p˃0.05). For SMTQ scores; activity level, gender and age are found to be significantly predictive. State-Anxiety scores were only significantly correlated with activity levels, whereas, gender and age were significantly correlated with the Trait-Anxiety scores (p<0.05). Conclus on:Being a high-level professional athlete is related to higher state anxiety levels during the COVID-19 outbreak. Even though professional athletes are mentally tougher, which will help them cope with high anxiety levels, they may need extra psychologic support as long as the pandemic and restrictions continue.

Coping with the COVID‐19 pandemic by Paralympic athletes preparing for elite sport events: A longitudinal study

“…These results are consistent with those obtained in other investigation, which has shown that both non‐athletes and athletes declined in mental health during the COVID‐19 outbreak, and experienced increased risk of depression 6,8 . In the case of high‐level professional AwD, potential reasons for those negative changes include disturbances in everyday training routines, uncertainty regarding the organization of sport events, fear about being infected with SARS‐CoV‐2 before sport competitions, and reduced training opportunities 25,26 . Levels of anxiety varied in a cubic way, while levels of depression increased linearly.…”

“…6,8 In the case of high-level professional AwD, potential reasons for those negative changes include disturbances in everyday training routines, uncertainty regarding the organization of sport events, fear about being infected with CoV-2 before sport competitions, and reduced training opportunities. 25,26 Levels of anxiety varied in a cubic way, while levels of depression increased linearly. This is probably due to the fact that anxiety is sensitive to many stressors, whereas depression could have been cumulative.…”