Drilling under the COVID-19 pandemic: A diary study of professional football players' mental health and workout perforance

There is little research examining how individuals' daily experience during a pandemic affects their daily mental health status and work performance. To address this knowledge gap, we invoke conservation of resources theory to propose a resource-based framework explaining how individuals' daily COVID-19 intrusive experience affects their daily mental health status (depression and anxiety) and work performance via its effect on daily psychosocial resource loss and gain; We further examine whether their supervisors' daily visionary leadership behaviour alleviates the adverse impacts of daily COVID-19 intrusive experience. Results, based on daily diary data from 139 football players (or soccer players) at 15 professional football clubs over 5 days during the COVID-19 pandemic, provided support for our predictions. Our study extends the literature by providing previously undocumented evidence on daily within-person variations in mental health status and work performance during a pandemic and by offering theory-driven insights into the mediating and moderating mechanisms involved in within-person variations.

Automated summary

This research investigates how individuals' daily experiences during a pandemic impact their mental health status and work performance, utilizing the conservation of resources theory and examining the potential moderating role of supervisors' visionary leadership behavior. Results from daily diary data of 139 football players at 15 professional football clubs during the COVID-19 pandemic supported the proposed framework, providing insights into within-person variations in mental health and work performance.