The Impact of the COVID-19 Lockdown on Coaches’ Perception of Stress and Emotion Regulation Strategies

Frontiers in Psychology

Selenia di Fronso¹  Maurizio Bertollo¹  Giampaolo Santi²  Cristina Montesano³  Sergio Costa³  Alessandro Quartiroli⁴  Francesco Di Gruttola⁵  Edoardo Giorgio Ciofi⁶  Luana Morgilli⁶ 

[1] Behavioral Imaging and Neural Dynamics Center, Department of Medicine and Aging Sciences, University “G. d’Annunzio” of Chieti-Pescara, Chieti, Italy;Department for Life Quality Studies, Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy;Department of Neuroscience, Imaging and Clinical Sciences, University “G. d’Annunzio” of Chieti-Pescara, Chieti, Italy;Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, La Crosse, WI, United States;IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Lucca, Italy;Independent Sport Psychology Consultant, Rome, Italy;

关键词: sport psychology;    adversity;    isolation;    psychological well-being;    performance;    coronavirus;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2020.601743

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

The recent global outspread of the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced the lives of people across multiple countries including athletes, coaches, and supporting staff. Along with everybody else, coaches found themselves constrained to an at-home self-isolation, which limited their ability to normally engage with their profession and to interact with their athletes. This situation may also have impacted their own psychological well-being. With this study, we explored coaches’ perceptions of stress in relation to their emotion regulation strategies depending upon their gender and competitive level (elite vs. non-elite). A sample of 2272 Italian coaches were surveyed during the period of lockdown. Mean values for perceived stress and emotion regulation strategies were compared to normative data of the two instruments as reported in the original studies. Furthermore, two Multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVAs) were completed to observe the potential differences in the coaches’ emotion regulation strategies and perception of stress. Finally, a blockwise regression analysis was run to assess how coaches’ emotion regulation strategies impacted upon their perception of stress. Both women and men reported higher levels of perceived stress than those reported in the normative data. Similarly, average scores for emotion regulation strategies were significantly different from those reported for normative data, in particular, coaches reported slightly higher use of emotion regulation strategies than participants in the original study. Significant gender-based differences emerged in terms of emotional regulations, with men adopting more suppression than women. No differences by competitive level were found. In terms of perceived stress, male coaches and elite coaches showed to be more in control of the situation (positive stress) than female coaches and non-elite coaches, respectively, while women experienced more negative stress than men. The blockwise regression evidenced how reappraisal resulted to be predictive in helping coaches to reduce their perception of stress, while suppression predicted higher stress perceptions.

【 授权许可】

CC BY