[The association of COVID-19 pandemic misconceptions with mental health and quality of life among recreational e-sports players].

Introduction: The COVID–19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic has fundamentally changed people’s daily lives. Despite intensive research on pandemic-related misconceptions, the relationship between misconceptions and mental health (depression/sleep disturbance) is a rarely studied area Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between depression, sleep disturbance and quality of life with COVID–19 misconceptions and restrictive measures among recreational e-sports (video game) players taking many covariates into account. Results: A sample of 1671 recreational video game users completed the online survey (male: n = 1522 (91.08%), mean age = 21.83 ± 4.18 years; female: n = 149 (8.91%), mean age = 24.33 ± 8.38 years). According to the findings of the mental health and the quality of life questionnaires, only current sleep disorders (χ² = 22.866, p<0.001) showed a significant correlation with COVID–19 misconceptions. Analysis of the data from the mental health questionnaires and the quality of life questionnaire confirmed this same association. The attitude towards restrictive measures was not influenced by the presence of mental issues, but a close correlation was confirmed with the Activity (χ² = 15.85, p = 0.04), Pain (χ² = 15.85, p = 0.04) and Anxiety (χ² = 20.85, p = 0.01) subscales of the quality of life questionnaire. During multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), depression, sleep disturbance, and quality of life did not prove to be significant factors in the development of misconceptions or in the attitude towards restrictions, although this tendency was detectable in both cases regarding sleep disturbance, while in the case of depression regarding restrictions. Discussion and conclusion: Our study highlights the potential role of depression, sleep disturbance, and quality of life in the context of COVID–19 response. Although no clear correlation was found, further studies are needed to clarify the exact relationships. Orv Hetil. 2025; 166(30): 1172–1180.