دکتر امیر وزینی طاهر

With the outbreak of a new corona virus called Covid-19, negative changes in health behaviors, such as physical activity, smoking, alcohol consumption and sleep, have occurred worldwide. Since the beginning of the epidemic, travel restrictions, social distancing, and the closure of many public places have occurred. The sum of these events has led to negative consequences on the mental and physical health of individuals, which requires a careful study of its underlying factors. Therefore, in the present study, the relationship between changes in health-related behaviors after the outbreak of Covid-19 and psychological distress was investigated.

An online survey was made available to a wide range of audiences with the help of social messengers. The study population included all Iranian adults aged 18 years and older. Data collection was done in May 2020. Psychological distress was assessed using the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS 21).Physical activity was assessed using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ). This questionnaire includes questions that assess the state of physical activity and classifies physical activity into three categories: weak, moderate, and severe. Data analysis was done by SPSS 20 software.

1400 sample (mean age 13.7 ± 43.4), most and nearly half of whom had at least one chronic disease, participated in the study. Nearly half of the participants reported a decrease in physical activity since the onset of the Covid-19 epidemic. Half of the participants reported no change in sleep quality, and most did not report any change in smoking since the outbreak of Covid-19. The linear regression test showed a significant association between increased depression, anxiety, and stress with negative changes in the combined behavior change score. There was health. This test also showed that compared to positive change or no change, negative change in behaviors was associated with a higher probability of increased depression, anxiety and stress.

Our findings suggest that negative changes in community health behaviors during the Covid-19 outbreak are directly related to increased psychological distress. Based on the results, it is necessary to take preventive and therapeutic measures for mental health problems as soon as possible during the outbreak of Covid-19.

In the present study the software of motor performance assessment in pursuit tasks is presented with ability to calculate root mean square error as an important measure of errors to evaluate motor performance. Based on this research desired indices, the computer software was designed and developed using MATLAB, C++, C programming languages. To determine construct validity, the correlation coefficient between manual results and automatic calculated results was assessed which was equal to 1 correlation. Furthermore, subjects were asked to follow the circle, square and triangle paths of rotary pursuit device which resulted in 0/83 correlation. This software having multiple applications, benefits from the advantage to be easily used by researchers and users with different levels and has a very accurate output.

This study aimed to assess relationship between fundamental movement skills (locomotor and object control) and level of physical activities (organized and sedentary). Role of body mass index (BMI) was also examined as a moderator variable. The population of study consisted of 6 – 12 years old schools students in Qazvin city، which 116 of them were selected randomly as sample of study. Fundamental movement skills were tested by gross motor development test (TGMD-2) and daily activities were assessed by last year activities inventory. For examining body mass index (BMI)، height and mass of participants tested. Spearman correlation used to identify relation between fundamental movement skills and daily activities. Based on study results، total fundamental movement skills correlated positively to organized activities (r=0/560) but no correlation with sedentary activities was shown (r=0/380). Study revealed that children with higher levels of organized activities have higher proficiency at fundamental movement skill but high levels of sedentary activities have no significant effect on these skills. Moreover، over-weight and higher than normal levels of BMI in children restricts their participation in physical activities. Since participation in PE class and programs play an important role in motor skills development of children، organized activities setting by parents and physical educators have excellent importance.

Talent identification is a process through which those with the highest chance to succeed in the future will be determined. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the application of a multivariate approach in talent identification of adolescent soccer players. The research population consisted of all soccer players in Tehran province aged between 12 and 16 years old. A battery of tests was applied to measure the psychological, technical, physiological and anthropometric factors in adolescent soccer players in two levels of elite (N=26) and sub-elite (N=35). Participants were divided into four age groups: U16, U15, U14, and U13. The OMSAT – 3 was used to evaluate the mental skills. Furthermore, technical skills were measured by six soccer skills tests of Football Association of England. Physiological measurements consisted of vertical jump, sit up, 10m sprint, 40m sprint and 280m shuttle run. Anthropometric characteristics were height, weight, body mass index, length of lower and upper leg, skin folds in four regions and body fat percentage. Statistical method to analyze the findings was MANOVA. The results showed that among four groups of factors, the physiological measures were statistically more capable of distinguishing the levels. The results of the present study showed a significant difference between elite and sub-elite soccer players in physiological, technical and psychological characteristics, but there was no significant difference in anthropometric attributes. There was a significant difference between elite and sub-elite soccer players in sit up, shuttle run, 10m sprint, 40m sprint, running with ball, turning, speed, dribbling, shooting, goal setting, relaxation, coping with stress, activation, focus, refocus and competition plan (P<0.05). These findings demonstrated that there is more need to emphasize the importance of mental skills in talent identification models. In conclusion, a multivariate approach with regard to the age differences can successfully discriminate elite players from their sub-elite counterparts in adolescence period. It can be suggested that in talent identification process in ages under 13 and 14, physiological measurements are less used and technical characteristics are more emphasized.