College students are at high risk of psychological distress, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to the difficulties brought by academic life, the pandemic also left serious psychological effects on students. In addition to the difficulties that sports life brought for the student group, the restrictions in the pandemic brought risks on the psychological adaptation skills of the student athletes. This study examines the psychological factors associated with the pandemic and its predictive psychological effects on Turkish sports students. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine the levels of psychological distress and academic burnout caused by the pandemic on student athletes and to examine the moderator role of resilience on distress and burnout. 236 students from different branches who study in different departments of the university and actively continue their sports lives participated in the research. In the study, COVID-19-related psychological distress scale, Maslach burnout scale and resilience scale were used. The relationships of the scales were determined by Pearson's product moment correlation coefficient and regression analysis. A one-factor MANOVA analysis was performed to determine the gender differentiation. The results of the study showed that resilience positively predicted psychological distress and burnout and was negatively related. The results of our study suggest that resilience may be one of the psychological skills that prevent psychological distress and burnout in student athletes.

COVID-19, psychological distress, academic burnout, resilience, athlete students