Effects of the COVID-19 Health Crisis on Sports Practice, Life Quality, and Emotional Status in Spanish High-Performance Athletes

• DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.736499
• Publication Date: 2021-09-27T16:05:13Z
• Authors: Elena Conde; Luis Manuel Martí...; Gema Sanz; Cristina López de...; Antonio Sánchez-Pato; Álvaro Díaz-Aroca; Alejandro Leiva-A...; Juan Alfonso Garc...; Yago Ramis; Miquel Torregrossa
• Keywords: Medal

Spain is one of the many countries highly affected by COVID-19 crisis, establishing very restrictive measures with a complete lockdown for more than 3 months. This situation forced closure sport practice and national or international competitions, leading to negative impact on physical psychological health high-performance athletes. Therefore, objectives this study were (a) determine effects crisis Spanish athletes in terms sports practice, life quality, emotional state (b) identify profile greatest difficulties during after lockdown. A sample 130 aged between 18 34 years (67 women 63 men) participated (83.1% achieved medal National–International elite competitions; 86.9% considered student-athletes). Measures included socio-demographic data through 5-dimension ad hoc survey: activity exercise using an adapted version from International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) ; status limitations SF-12 Health Perceived stress (Short-PSS) Mood States (29-item POMS ). All participants have shown significant decrease pre–post-lockdown both performance perception, especially women, individual athletes, medalists, student-athletes. Strong training, attention, motivation as well moderate reported, Even improved energy level post-lockdown period, moderate-to-high scores reported medalists. Our findings highlight importance paying attention three profiles: team (due social distance), student-athletes (dual-career issues), (prevalence implicit gender inequalities sport).