Consequences of Lockdown and the COVID-19 Pandemic for a Selected Sport – Comparative Study

BACKGROUND

In December 2019, severe viral pneumonia caused by the new beta coronavirus appeared in China. It spread rapidly around the world and affected it greatly. In order to stop the global COVID-19 pandemic, the world was forced to adopt extensive social distancing and isolating policies, including lockdown. The measures also affected the sports and fitness sectors.

AIM

The main objective of this comparative study was to determine whether there could be a relationship between potential interest in information retrieval and subsequent possible changes in preferences and behaviour regarding selected anabolic androgenic and steroid substances before and after the global COVID-19 pandemic in the context of attitudes towards religion and the monthly incomes of respondents in the Czech and Slovak Republics.

METHODS

The study used secondary and primary information sources. Secondary sources were obtained through the citation and reference database Scopus and the bibliographic and citation database Web of Science. Selected mathematical-statistical methods were applied for the analysis and interpretation of primary sources.

SAMPLE

In this comparative study, a research sample of 127 respondents from the Czech Republic and 93 respondents from the Slovak Republic was used. The snowball method was implemented for data collection.

RESULTS

The results of the study showed that in the Czech respondents there is no statically significant relationship between changes in preferences and behaviour regarding selected performance-enhancing anabolic androgens and steroids before and after the global COVID-19 pandemic and their attitude to religion, while in the Slovak respondents such a dependence does exist.

CONCLUSIONS

Furthermore, it was found that the monthly incomes of the respondents do not affect their potential interest in information retrieval and subsequent possible changes in their preferences and behaviour regarding selected performance-enhancing anabolic androgens and steroids before and after the global COVID-19 pandemic.