The relationship between college athletes' health literacy and COVID-19 anxiety levels

Abstract

Background and Study Aim. Health literacy is the ability to access health information, understand, evaluate and apply health information. The health literacy of athletes may be determinant in the understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic process and in the level of the impact of this health-related anxiety factor. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine whether there is a relationship between college athletes' COVID-19 anxiety levels and their health literacy levels during the COVID-19 pandemic. Material and Methods. College athletes between the ages of 18 and 32 participated in the study and the average age was 24.2. A total of 234 elite collage athletes participated in the study. 133 of the participants were males and 101 were females. COVID-19 Anxiety Scale was used to determine the COVID-19 anxiety states and Health Literacy index was used to the level of health literacy of the participants in the COVID-19 pandemic process. Pearson correlation analysis and stepwise regression analysis were performed for statistical analyses. Significance level in analysis has been accepted as p. < 05. Results. Our findings revealed that there were significant relationships between elite athletes' health literacy sub-dimension scores and COVID-anxiety level. In addition, it was determined that access to information and understanding information sub-dimensions from health literacy sub-dimensions predicted elite college athletes’ the COVID-19 anxiety level at 21.2%. As a result, elite college athletes had low levels of anxiety against COVID-19, and this situation associated with their high level of health literacy. Conclusions. The increase of elite college athletes' the level of health literacy will decrease their anxiety levels. It will be beneficial to implement training programs that can increase their health literacy levels in order to reduce the impact of the unexpected health crisis due to COVID-19, especially the anxiety levels of college athletes.