Abstract
Purpose: This systematic review aimed to analyze the impact that the COVID-19 lockdown had on the amount of physical activity performed by university students.Materials and Methods: A systematic electronic search for studies providing information regarding physical activity levels pre and during COVID-19 pandemic in university students was performed up to 20th October 2020 in the databases Cochrane Library, PubMed, SPORTDiscus, and Web of Science. The risk of bias of external validity quality of included studies was assessed by means of those the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS). The quality of the evidence for main outcomes was graded using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach.Results and Conclusions: A total of 10 studies were selected. Physical activity levels were assessed by means of questionnaires (10 studies) and accelerometer (1 study). Risk of bias was regarded as low and high in six and four investigations, respectively. The quality of evidence was downgraded to low. A significant reduction of physical activity levels were observed in 9 studies. Compared to pre-lockdown values, five studies showed a reduction of light/mild physical activity (walking) between 32.5 and 365.5%, while seven studies revealed a reduction of high/vigorous physical activity between 2.9 and 52.8%. Walking, moderate, vigorous, and total physical activity levels have been reduced during the COVID-19 pandemic confinements in university students of different countries. Despite of the reductions, those who met the current minimum PA recommendations before the lockdown generally met the recommendations also during the confinements.
Highlights
The world is experiencing a life-threating situation due to the COVID-19 pandemic
This review aimed to analyze if the physical activity (PA) levels of university students changed during the confinements and their adherence to the current global PA recommendations
This review aimed to analyze if PA levels of university students changed during the confinements in different countries
Summary
The world is experiencing a life-threating situation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. By 14th October 2020, there have been 37.888.384 confirmed cases, including 1.081.868 deaths (World Health Organization, 2020a). We still do not have silver bullets or shortcuts, and the answer requires to use every single tool in the toolbox (World Health Organization, 2020b) To this purpose, one of the most important strategies is to reduce mixing of susceptible and infectious people through early ascertainment of cases or reduction of contact (i.e., social distancing; Lewnard and Lo, 2020), implementing measures such as quarantines and lockdowns, which have proven highly effective in controlling the spread of the disease (Baker et al, 2020). One of the most important strategies is to reduce mixing of susceptible and infectious people through early ascertainment of cases or reduction of contact (i.e., social distancing; Lewnard and Lo, 2020), implementing measures such as quarantines and lockdowns, which have proven highly effective in controlling the spread of the disease (Baker et al, 2020) These extreme measures, have economic consequences (Bonaccorsi et al, 2020). Changes in lifestyle such as reduced physical activity (PA) and unhealthy diet (Ammar et al, 2020a), as well as compulsory measures such as social distance derived from the lockdowns, can affect both the physical and the mental health of the population worldwide (Ammar et al, 2020b; Mattioli et al, 2020)
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