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. 2021 Jul:129:105269.
doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2021.105269. Epub 2021 May 14.

Competitive anxiety or Coronavirus anxiety? The psychophysiological responses of professional football players after returning to competition during the COVID-19 pandemic

Amir Hossien Mehrsafar  1 , Ali Moghadam Zadeh  2 , José Carlos Jaenes Sánchez  3 , Parisa Gazerani  4
Affiliations

Competitive anxiety or Coronavirus anxiety? The psychophysiological responses of professional football players after returning to competition during the COVID-19 pandemic

Amir Hossien Mehrsafar et al. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2021 Jul.

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to examine the relationship between competitive anxiety, fear/anxiety of COVID-19, and autonomic and endocrine stress responses in professional football players after returning to competition during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: Ninety male professional football players (age: 26.33 ± 2.48 yr) volunteered to participate in this study, which included an official competition. Psychophysiological responses, including the Fear of COVID-19 Scale, the Coronavirus Anxiety Scale, and the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 Revised, were collected 30 min before the competition. In addition, salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) and salivary cortisol (sCort) were collected at 8 a.m. and 15 min before the competition.

Results: The main findings, based on the Pearson correlation, showed significant positive correlations between COVID-19 anxiety and somatic competitive anxiety (p = 0.01), cognitive competitive anxiety (p = 0.01), and competition response of sCort and sAA (p = 0.01). Moreover, fear of COVID-19 was positively correlated with COVID-19 anxiety (p = 0.01). On the contrary, the awakening response of sCort and sAA was not found to be correlated with psychological parameters (all p > 0.05). The analysis also indicated that there was no significant correlation between self-confidence with other psychological and physiological variables (all p > 0.05). The regression analysis showed that cognitive anxiety was a relevant predictor for the competition response of sCort and sAA (p < 0.05). Moreover, COVID-19 anxiety was the only predictor of somatic and cognitive anxiety (p < 0.05).

Conclusions: The present study provides the first preliminary evidence that COVID-19 anxiety and competitive anxiety might pose a negative impact on the athletic performance of professional football players during COVID-19 pandemic competitions. Thus, research is needed to build a strategy to reduce the psychophysiological stress related to COVID-19 and competition response.

Keywords: COVID-19; COVID-19 anxiety; Elite athletes; Fear of COVID; Football; Stress.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Schematic representation of the experimental setting. Participants completed the CSAI-2R, CAS, and FCS 30 min before the football competition. Besides, saliva samples were collected at 8 a.m. and before competition (15 min before). The length of the competition was approximately 1 h and 15 min. Note: CSAI-2, Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2; sAA, Salivary Alpha-Amylase; sCort, Salivary Cortisol; CAS, Coronavirus Anxiety Scale; FCS, Fear of Coronavirus Scale.
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