COVID-19 Lockdown: A Global Study Investigating the Effect of Athletes' Sport Classification and Sex on Training Practices

PURPOSE

To investigate differences in athletes' knowledge, beliefs, and training practices during COVID-19 lockdowns with reference to sport classification and sex. This work extends an initial descriptive evaluation focusing on athlete classification.

METHODS

Athletes (12,526; 66% male; 142 countries) completed an online survey (May-July 2020) assessing knowledge, beliefs, and practices toward training. Sports were classified as team sports (45%), endurance (20%), power/technical (10%), combat (9%), aquatic (6%), recreational (4%), racquet (3%), precision (2%), parasports (1%), and others (1%). Further analysis by sex was performed.

RESULTS

During lockdown, athletes practiced body-weight-based exercises routinely (67% females and 64% males), ranging from 50% (precision) to 78% (parasports). More sport-specific technical skills were performed in combat, parasports, and precision (∼50%) than other sports (∼35%). Most athletes (range: 50% [parasports] to 75% [endurance]) performed cardiorespiratory training (trivial sex differences). Compared to prelockdown, perceived training intensity was reduced by 29% to 41%, depending on sport (largest decline: ∼38% in team sports, unaffected by sex). Some athletes (range: 7%-49%) maintained their training intensity for strength, endurance, speed, plyometric, change-of-direction, and technical training. Athletes who previously trained ≥5 sessions per week reduced their volume (range: 18%-28%) during lockdown. The proportion of athletes (81%) training ≥60 min/session reduced by 31% to 43% during lockdown. Males and females had comparable moderate levels of training knowledge (56% vs 58%) and beliefs/attitudes (54% vs 56%).

CONCLUSIONS

Changes in athletes' training practices were sport-specific, with few or no sex differences. Team-based sports were generally more susceptible to changes than individual sports. Policy makers should provide athletes with specific training arrangements and educational resources to facilitate remote and/or home-based training during lockdown-type events.

Corrigendum: The Transcultural Community Resilience Scale: Psychometric Properties and Multinational Validity in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.713477.].

The Transcultural Community Resilience Scale: Psychometric Properties and Multinational Validity in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Few instruments assess community resilience. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the capacity of communities to support resilience of members deserves to be assessed to develop programs for improving mental health of affected populations. This article presents the development of the Ottawa-Community Resilience Scale (O-CRS), its underlying factorial structure and transcultural validity with a multilingual (English, French, Creole, Kinyarwanda), multinational (DR Congo, Haiti, Rwanda, Togo) and multicultural sample affected by this pandemic. A sample of 1,267 participants (40.9% women) were recruited in the four countries: DRC (n = 626, 43.4% women), Haiti (n = 225, 42.0% women), Rwanda (n = 174, 40.5% women), and Togo (n = 242, 33.2% women), with a mean age of 32 (SD = 10.1). They completed measures assessing individual resilience, depression and the O-CRS. Exploratory and confirmatory Factor Analyses, Cronbach alpha, coefficient H and the McDonald's Omega, and bivariate regression were used to estimate the underlying components of the O-CRS, its internal consistency and concurrent validity. Parallel factorial analysis and confirmatory factor analysis results revealed an excellent fit 3-factor structure. Internal consistency coefficients varied between 0.82 and 0.95. The O-CRS showed a good construct validity with a positive association with individual resilience and negative association with depression score. Developed with a collaborative approach involving researchers, practitioners, and clients/patients, the O-CRS and its three factors (community strengths and support, community trust and faith, and community values) demonstrated excellent psychometric properties for assessing community resilience among adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A Validation of Servant Leadership Scale on Multinational Sample

Servant leadership has been gaining attention from all types of organizations, whether it be business organizations or public schools. With the increase of studies on the servanthood characteristics of organizational leaders, various scales of servant leadership were used to examine servant leadership behaviors, perceptions, and attitudes in different organizations. In line with the increasing interest on servant leadership, the purpose of the study was aimed at characterizing the Servant Leadership (SL) scale psychometrically through Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Rasch analysis. The related data were collected from 461 teachers across several countries. The one-factor structure of the SL was confirmed in CFA along with the Rasch Rating Scale model, with the analyses of rating scale diagnosis, item fit assessment, reliability, unidimensionality, local independence, and differential item functioning (DIF). High person separation and reliability statistics supported the consistency of the SL scores. Only one item (Item 7) did not fit the Rasch model, and another item (Item 1) showed DIF to be in favor of females. Overall CFA and the Rasch models provided enough evidence for the seven-item SL scale.