**1. Introduction**

The leading health and social problem in many countries around the world is the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Up to 6 August 2022, a total of 588,081,229 cases of disease were recorded in various regions of the world, including 6,434,821 deaths and 559,178,151 recoveries. In Poland, the reach of the epidemic is 6,093,571 people, of which 116,660 patients have died and 5,335,862 have already been cured [1].

Empirical evidence from different countries affected by the pandemic suggests that symptoms of anxiety and depression (16.0–28.0%) and sleep disorders (38.9%), which are associated with impaired cognitive dynamics and cognitive deficits, including attention and perceptiveness [2,3], are relatively frequent psychological reactions to the current crisis situation, with higher rates of symptoms of mental health disorders found in women than in men [4–6]. On the other hand, both the occurrence of the above-mentioned symptoms and the consequences of life limitations during the pandemic may disrupt the social life of many people, and thus lower the quality of their relationships with family members and friends and professional interactions [6,7].

**Citation:** Mazur, A.; Barto ´n, E. The Structure of the Relationship between Physical Activity and Psychosocial Functioning of Women and Men during the COVID-19 Epidemic in Poland. *IJERPH* **2022**, *19*, 11860. https://

doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191911860

Academic Editor: Andrzej Tomczak

Received: 17 August 2022 Accepted: 16 September 2022 Published: 20 September 2022

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**Copyright:** © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

When attempting to understand the nature of the aforementioned crisis, it is important to refer to the leading assumptions of the biopsychosocial model dominating in modern health sciences, which can explain intrapsychic reactions of people to the pandemic as a result of the interaction of a network of equivalent biological, psychological and social factors shaping health [8–10].

Taking into account the biological factors included in the considered model, it should be emphasized that empirical evidence from various countries affected by the pandemic indicates that gender moderates the resistance to stressors and has a significant influence on psychological variables important in coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) transmission, specifically mental health and cognitive processes [8–12]. On the basis of a meta-analysis, it was proven that women exhibit a higher intensity of symptoms characteristic of depressive syndrome and anxiety disorders than men associated with the presence of attention and perceptiveness deficits, which may indicate that it is more difficult for them to cope with the current situation [13–17].

It was also observed that the mental condition and the state of cognitive processes during the current crisis may be of significant importance for social functioning, including family, interpersonal and professional interactions [18]. It is postulated that the quality of these relationships is directly related to the received social support, acting as a factor protecting against the negative consequences of experienced stress [19].

It has been observed that during the transmission of SARS-CoV-2, women report a greater sense of loneliness than men [15,17]. Moreover, regardless of gender, in many countries, including Poland, Spain, Australia, the United States, Sweden and China, due to social isolation, quarantine, working from home and other pandemic restrictions, the number of social interactions decreased [15,17,20–22]. This at the same time reduces the likelihood of receiving support, and thus increases the risk of developing unwanted psychological symptoms, including depression, anxiety disorders and accompanying problems in cognitive functioning [23].

Bearing in mind that, according to the adopted approach, a human is a living system, constituting an indivisible whole, composed of biological, psychological and social dimensions, which, under the influence of incoming information, or, in other words, the requirements of the environment, remain in a dynamic balance, it is extremely important to pay attention to factors supporting its remedial efficiency, and their consequences on the general health condition [9,10].

One of the key forms of preventive action recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) is regular physical activity, defined as any type of body movement initiated by working muscles that causes energy expenditure. It includes walking, moderate and vigorous activity, which, at the same time, strongly distinguishes it from other forms of leisure activities, including time spent on passive leisure such as sitting and lying down [24,25].

The available literature shows that physical activity understood this way reduces the risk of developing undesirable mental symptoms as well as disorders in cognitive functioning, because by increasing the metabolism of kynurenine and the expression of kynurenine aminotransferase in skeletal muscles, it minimizes the consequences of environmental stress, and thus prevents the appearance or reduces the severity of symptoms characteristic to neuropsychiatric disorders [26].

It has been proven that systematic physical exertion delays neurodegenerative processes and regulates monoamine metabolism, as well as neuroimmune functioning [27]. The physiological changes taking place under the influence of training support the proper functioning of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis (HPA), the excessive activation of which, caused by increased and sustained release of cortisol, is associated with the risk of developing many disorders [28–30]. In addition, physical activity by stimulating the expression of the brain nerve growth factor (BDNF), as well as supporting the proper functioning of the Trk-B receptor and BDNF-Trk-B signaling, determines the neurophysiological processes taking place, which in turn has a beneficial effect on affective, cognitive and social functioning [31,32].

The vast majority of studies indicate that men have higher levels of physical activity than women, which may be due to different uses of the time available in the course of a day [33–36]. A nationwide study reported that, on average, men devote one hour and thirty-three minutes per day to sports, while women, on average, perform physical exercises for one hour and nineteen minutes per day. Moreover, men's workouts tend to be characterized by higher intensity than those performed by women. As a result, men's higher physical activity, to a greater extent than women's, may be a factor in protecting their mental fitness [35,36].

It is worth mentioning, however, that the results of studies conducted in different regions of Poland are not consistent. For example, in the population of residents of northeastern Poland, it has been shown that, although moderate physical activity is undertaken more often by men (53.9%) than by women (34.7%), and that men, compared to the opposite sex, are almost twice as likely to ride a bicycle (31.5% vs. 13.1%), but at the same time it has been observed that, regardless of gender, the physical activity of residents of this region is insufficient and differs significantly from levels recorded in other parts of the country, as well as in other European countries [33].

Results of a cross-sectional study conducted in a random sample of 6000 people between the ages of 40 and 64 in Japan are also of interest. They came to slightly different conclusions than the empirical works cited above. They observed that women, on average, spent 12.6% less time on sedentary lifestyles and 23.4% more time on low-intensity physical activity than men, but found no significant differences for moderate and vigorous physical activity [37].

This suggests that the conclusions of the empirical works published to date are inconclusive. The reported results vary depending on the region of Poland, as well as the part of world in which they're conducted [33–37], which at the same time suggests that they appear to be worth supplementing. The results of our own research will therefore allow us to determine whether, and possibly to what extent, the observations of other researchers reflect the situation of the people of Eastern Poland. Considering that there are no studies aimed at determining the level of physical activity, mental health, cognitive processes and quality of social functioning, as well as the importance of interactions between these variables in the population of women and men exposed to stress resulting from the COVID-19 epidemic in Eastern Poland, the data obtained can provide both valuable scientific observation and be used to develop psychoprophylaxis interventions.

Hence, the aim of this own research was to determine the level of physical activity, mental health, cognitive processes and quality of social functioning, as well as the structure of the relationship between physical activity and psychosocial functioning of women and men during the COVID-19 epidemic in Eastern Poland.

Two research questions were posed accordingly: (1) what is the level of physical activity, mental health disorders, cognitive disorders and social functioning, as well as (2) what is the significance of the interactions between physical activity, mental health and cognitive disorders for the social functioning of men and women during the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland?

In response, two hypotheses were formulated, assuming that during the COVID-19 epidemic in Poland, depending on gender, the following varies: (1) the level of physical activity, the intensity of symptoms characteristic of mental health disorders, cognitive disorders and the quality of social functioning as well as (2) the importance of the interaction between physical activity, mental health and cognitive disorders for social functioning.

#### **2. Material and Methods**
