Self-compassion and repetitive thinking in relation to depressive mood and fear of the future: An investigation during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic in semiprofessional football players

The coronavirus pandemic has had a high impact on mental health. Also, semiprofessional football players are strongly affected by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) because training during the lockdown phase has been forbidden. It was the primary goal of this study to investigate if those athletes suffer from a depressive mood and fear of the future. Furthermore, the question was asked whether the psychological variables of self-compassion and repetitive thinking are related to this. A total of 55 semiprofessional football players completed a demographic questionnaire with questions related to depressive mood and fear of the future, and a rumination-, worry- and self-compassion scale. The results show an association between the negative scale of self-compassion and depressive mood as well as fear of the future. Whereas depressive mood was predicted by self-compassion, fear of the future was only indirectly predicted by self-compassion by the mediating effects of repetitive thinking. Also, in semiprofessional football, self-compassion interventions might be a useful tool in difficult times. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version of this article (10.1007/s12662-021-00712-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.