Association of national COVID-19 cases with objectively and subjectively measured mental health proxies in the Austrian football league–an epidemiological study

Authors

Antje van der Zee-Neuen
Alexander Seymer
Dagmar Schaffler-Schaden
Jürgen Herfert
James ÓBrien, Edith Cowan UniversityFollow
Tim Johansson
Patrick Kutschar
Stephan Ludwig
Thomas Stöggl
David Keeley
Maria Flamm
Jürgen Osterbrink

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Title

All Life

Volume

14

Issue

1

First Page

1011

Last Page

1021

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

School

School of Medical and Health Sciences

RAS ID

42646

Comments

van der Zee-Neuen, A., Seymer, A., Schaffler-Schaden, D., Herfert, J., ÓBrien, J., Johansson, T., . . . Osterbrink, J. (2021). Association of national COVID-19 cases with objectively and subjectively measured mental health proxies in the Austrian football league–an epidemiological study. All Life, 14(1), 1011-1021. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/26895293.2021.1994473

Abstract

We aimed to explore the association of national COVID-19 data with the objective and subjective mental health proxies (i.e. location variance, self-reported sleep quality, level of recovery, perceived risk of infection) in team and staff members of five professional Austrian Football clubs. Data were conveniently collected during the implementation of a novel monitoring concept. The concept was designed to enable safe continuation of professional Football during the COVID-19 pandemic. These data were matched with Austrian COVID-19 data and smartphone collected location data. Multivariable linear regression models explored the association of COVID-19, defined as daily novel or active Austrian cases of COVID-19, with the mental health proxies. An increasing number of novel Austrian COVID-19 cases was significantly associated with deteriorating sleep quality (B 0.48, 95% CI 0.05; 1.00). An increasing number of active Austrian COVID-19 cases was significantly associated with an increase in perceived infection risk (B 0.04, 95% CI 0.00; 0.07) and location variance (B 0.28, 95% CI 0.06; 0.49). An increasing Austrian COVID-19 incidence is adversely associated with mental health in professional Footballers and staff members. During the ongoing pandemic, targeted mental care should be included in the daily routines of this population.

DOI

10.1080/26895293.2021.1994473

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.