The Role of Pandemic Fatigue in Seeking and Avoiding Information on COVID-19 Among Young Adults.

The health information environment surrounding COVID-19 is complex, with varying and competing information. This study uses the risk information seeking and processing model (RISP) to examine COVID-19 information seeking and avoiding among young adults. Pandemic fatigue is also operationalized and tested as a more nuanced measure of negative affective response within the RISP framework. Survey results (N = 527) reveal pandemic fatigue predicts information seeking and avoidance, but may have a weaker influence on these outcome variables than the RISP's original construct of negative affective response. Additionally, the original RISP model achieved slightly more explanatory power in predicting risk information seeking than our revised RISP model, using pandemic fatigue as an alternative measure of negative affective response. These findings indicate that contemporary concepts such as pandemic fatigue may be incorporated into applications of the RISP model, thus allowing researchers to evaluate other types of negative affective responses to risk and further expanding the utility of the model. Theoretical implications and practical recommendations for public health officials and health care workers are discussed.

Sport-related anxiety: current insights.

To date, much research has been devoted to understanding how anxiety can affect sport performance, both in practice and in competitive settings. It is well known that sport has the potential for high levels of stress and anxiety, and that practicing and employing a range of psychological strategies can be beneficial in anxiety management. Equally, growing evidence also suggests that anxiety can play a role in sport injury prevention, occurrence, rehabilitation, and the return to sport process. The purpose of this paper is to provide current insights into sport-related anxiety. More specifically, it will provide the reader with definitions and theoretical conceptualizations of sport-related anxiety. This will be followed by making a case for considering the term "performance" to be broader than activities associated with sport-related performance in practice and competition, by including performance activities associated with sport injury prevention, rehabilitation, and the return to sport process. The paper will then highlight the importance of recognizing early signs and symptoms of anxiety, and the potential need for referral. Finally, the conclusions will emphasize the need for appropriate, client-specific, and practitioner competent care for athletes experiencing sport-related anxiety.

Prediction of resultant testosterone concentrations from flywheel-based resistive exercise.

INTRODUCTION: Numerous variables impact resultant testosterone concentrations (TC) that foretell the efficacy of workouts. Identifying variables may aid the development of in-flight exercise prescription. METHODS: To identify variables that predict the variance in TC from flywheel ergometer exercise, 17 subjects did 3 workouts in a randomized order. Comprised of 10-repetition leg press sets, workouts entailed either: 1) 3 sets of both concentric and eccentric muscle actions (CE3), and concentric-only actions done for 2) three (CO3), or 3) six (CO6) sets. Venous plasma TC were collected before and at 1 and 30 min postexercise. The last two collection points served as criterion measures. Body mass, delta blood lactate levels, peak angular velocity, average power, and total work from workouts were used to predict the variance in TC. RESULTS: Predictor variables accounted for significant levels of variance at both 1 and 30 min post-exercise for both the CE3 and the concentric-only (CO3 and CO6 bouts combined) workouts using multivariate regression. Inclusion of eccentric variables (only collected from the CE3 bout; r2 = 0.90) predicted nearly twice the variance than the concentric-only (r2 = 0.54) workouts. CONCLUSIONS: Body mass and average power indices were the best predictors of the variance in post-workout TC. Since a flywheel-based device is used to abate in-flight muscle atrophy and strength losses, exercise prescriptions may wish to monitor these indices as they impacted post-workout TC to the greatest extent. Future research should assess why eccentric variables increased the amount of explained variance from flywheel ergometer workouts.