Abstract
BackgroundThe 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) emerges in China, which spreads rapidly and becomes a public health emergency of international concern. Chinese government has promptly taken quarantine measures to block the transmission of the COVID-19, which may cause deleterious consequences on everyone’s behaviors and psychological health. Few studies have examined the associations between behavioral and mental health in different endemic areas. This study aimed to describe screen time (ST), physical activity (PA), and depressive symptoms, as well as their associations among Chinese college students according to different epidemic areas.MethodsThe study design is cross-sectional using online survey, from 4 to 12 February 2020, 14,789 college students accomplished this online study, participants who did not complete the questionnaire were excluded, and finally this study included 11,787 college students from China.ResultsThe average age of participants was 20.51 ± 1.88 years. 57.1% of the college students were male. In total, 25.9% of college students reported depression symptoms. ST > 4 h/day was positively correlated with depressive symptoms (β = 0.48, 95%CI 0.37–0.59). COVID-19ST > 1 h/day was positively correlated with depressive symptoms (β = 0.54, 95%CI 0.43–0.65), compared with COVID-19ST ≤ 0.5 h/day. Compared with PA ≥ 3 day/week, PA < 3 day/week was positively associated with depression symptoms (β = 0.01, 95%CI 0.008–0.012). Compared with low ST and high PA, there was an interaction association between high ST and low PA on depression (β = 0.31, 95%CI 0.26–0.36). Compared with low COVID-19ST and high PA, there was an interaction association between high COVID-19ST and low PA on depression (β = 0.37, 95%CI 0.32–0.43). There were also current residence areas differences.ConclusionsOur findings identified that high ST or low PA was positively associated with depressive symptoms independently, and there was also an interactive effect between ST and PA on depressive symptoms.
Highlights
The 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) emerges in China, which spreads rapidly and becomes a public health emergency of international concern
The correlation of screen time and physical activity with depression symptoms during COVID‐19 outbreak In Table 3, after adjusting for confounding factors, compared with daily ST ≤ 2 h/day, ST > 4 h/day was positively correlated with depressive symptoms (β = 0.48, 95%confidence intervals (CIs) 0.37–0.59)
After adjusting for confounding factors, compared with daily COVID-19ST ≤ 0.5 h/day, COVID-19ST > 1 h/day was positively correlated with depressive symptoms (β = 0.54, 95%CI 0.43–0.65)
Summary
The 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) emerges in China, which spreads rapidly and becomes a public health emergency of international concern. This study aimed to describe screen time (ST), physical activity (PA), and depressive symptoms, as well as their associations among Chinese college students according to different epidemic areas. In Xiang’s study, children and adolescents’ median time spent in PA decreased drastically, approximately 435 min/week decreased on average; frequency of physical inactivity extensively increased from 21.3 to 65.6% during COVID-19 epidemic [6]. Another recent study has reported that time spent in PA decreased by 2.30 ± 4.60 h/week and screen time increased by 4.85 ± 2.40 h/day among adolescents during COVID-19 epidemic [7]. Previous research on screen time and mental health during COVID-19 has shown that excessive screen time is associated cardiovascular disease risk factors such as obesity, high blood pressure, and insulin resistance in youth [9] and high ST can cause various maladaptive psychophysiological responses, such as arousal of the central nervous system, and can adversely association sleep patterns and intrapersonal social interactions [10, 11]
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