Prevalence of Exercise Addiction and Its Correlation with Body Image Dissatisfaction and Eating Disorders among Physiotherapy Students during COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Exercise addiction (EA) may happen when an individual fails to perform exercise moderately causing exercise to turn into a compulsive behavior. Although there are growing evidence suggested that EA may be comorbid with other issue such as body image dissatisfaction (BID) and eating disorders (ED), however there are limited studies targeted on the Malaysian undergraduate population. Hence, the present study aimed to investigate the prevalence of EA and its relationship with BID and ED among physiotherapy students in Klang Valley, Malaysia during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted by sharing the online questionnaires which consists of 3 main components: (i) Exercise Addiction Inventory (EAI) (ii) Body Shape Questionnaire-8C (BSQ-8C) and (iii) Eating Disorder Diagnostic Scale (EDDS) to the physiotherapy students in Klang Valley, Malaysia to assess the risk of EA together with the correlation between EA with BID and EA with ED during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: A total of 282 students has participated in the study. The prevalence of EA among the physiotherapy undergraduate students during the COVID-19 pandemic was 8.2%. There was a significant correlation between the mean score of EA and BID (p=0.0.037, r=0.124). The correlation between EA and ED was proved significant in the current study (p<0.001, r=0.224). Conclusions: The relatively low prevalence of EA (8.2%) among physiotherapy undergraduates in Klang Valley, Malaysia during the COVID-19 pandemic was observed. There are significant but weak correlations between EA with BID and ED.