Effect of COVID-19 Pandemic on Perceived Stress, Anxiety, Mood, and Training Quality in Elite Athletes.

Primary outcomes

1. Sociodemographic information and training characteristics

   Time frame: at inclusion

   Sociodemographic information and training characteristics Participants asked to provide sociodemographic information. Also, the difference in training frequency, duration, and quality after COVID-19 pandemic measured via 22 self-created questions.

2. The Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI)

   Time frame: one week

   The Beck Anxiety Inventory (Beck et al., 1988) has been widely used to measure the severity of anxiety by self-report and showed to has internal consistency and high test-retest reliability. The Turkish version of the BAI proved to be a reliable and valid measure (Ulusoy et al., 1993). The participant rates how much each symptom has bothered the participant in the past week in the 21-item self-report questionnaire. The symptoms are rated on a four-point scale, ranging from ''not at all'' (0) to ''severely'' (4).

3. The Visual Analogue Scale (VAS)

   Time frame: at inclusion

   The Visual Analogue Scale (0 not stressed at all - 10 maximum amount of stress) used to measure self-reported stress and anxiety in elite athletes before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The VAS showed to be an efficient tool for assessing self-reported stress and anxiety.

4. Perceived Stress Scale (PSS)

   Time frame: one month

   The 14-item version of PSS scale asks patients how often they had experienced thoughts and feelings such as control irritations and stress during the previous one month, with responses ranging from 0 (never) to 4 (very often). The Turkish PSS proved to be a reliable and valid tool to measure perceived stress. The final score obtained by reversing responses (e.g., 0 = 4, 1 = 3, 2 = 2, 3 = 1 & 4 = 0) to the four positively stated items (items 4, 5, 7, & 8) and then summing across all scale items. Higher scores indicating higher levels of perceived stress.

5. Satisfaction with Life Scale

   Time frame: at inclusion

   The Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985) is a 5-item measure designed to measure global cognitive judgments of one's life satisfaction. The answers ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Items are summed to create a total score with higher scores indicating a greater degree of satisfaction with life.

6. Brunel mood scale (BRUMS)

   Time frame: at inclusion

   The BRUMs scale is based on the Profile of Mood States. The Turkish version of the BRUMS scale studied on Turkish athletes, 24-item measures and six subscales in the original version decreased to 19 items and four subscales: anger, depression, vigor, fatigue. The results of the study proved to be valid and reliable (Cakiroglu et al., 2016). Each subscale has a numerical rating scale (0 = not at all, 1 = a bit, 2 = moderate, 3 = enough; 4 = extremely) from which research participant select the one best represents at that time. The results within the subscale are summed and a score range from 0 to 16.