https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7806-9695
Dear Editor,
We read the “Letter to the editor regarding the effect of isolation on athletes’ mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic.” We would like to address the main points of the commentaries and respond to their highlights.
Firstly, we agree that those in ethnic minorities have an increased risk of being infected with COVID-19. Although in our study, the participants were all from the same ethnic group and there were no participants from any ethnic minority. The participants were not specifically selected from the same ethnicity but the teams that were contacted to enroll the participants had players from the same ethnicity.
We also agree that having symptoms of COVID-19 or the possibility of having positive test results could increase the anxiety levels of participants. In Turkey, all sport events were canceled and the public were strictly restricted from leaving their houses. None of the participants or people who live with the participants had symptoms of coronavirus. Since the health policy ordered that people without any coronavirus symptoms or with the risk of contact with coronavirus patients could not be tested for COVID-19, none of the participants were tested for coronavirus. So, the anxiety levels might be affected by the possibility of asymptomatic infection with coronavirus.
The reason for the uneven number of male and female participants is that we wanted to use all gathered data for powerful statistical analysis. The aim of the study was to reach as many athletes as possible in different branches. Reducing the number of male participants in order to equalize the number of participants of different genders could reduce the power of the study and the statistical analysis as it would reduce the total available data. Since the number of participants in both sexes included a large number of participants, we used all the data.
We agree that getting the participants to complete the questionnaires more frequently would contribute to the study. Also, having data before the first case of COVID-19 in Turkey and before the isolation period began would provide valuable data to evaluate the effects. Unfortunately, we had to wait for ethical committee approval and we started the study as soon as the approval was received. Due to this, we obtained the results after 2 months. We wanted to publish our results to contribute to the literature on this important subject because the number of participants in the study is high and we believe that it provides valuable information. We are also running several studies with different designs that examine the effects of COVID-19 on athletes, and we will continue to contribute to the literature about these issues.
Declaration of interest
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the authors for their valuable opinions and contributions.