Abstract
IntroductionDuring the COVID-19 outbreak, many citizens were asked to stay at home in self-quarantine, which can pose a significant challenge with respect to remaining physically active and maintaining mental health. This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of inadequate physical activity, anxiety, and depression and to explore the relationship of physical activity with anxiety and depression symptoms among Chinese college students during quarantine.MethodUsing a web-based cross-sectional survey, we collected data from 1,396 Chinese college students. Anxiety and depression were assessed with the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) and the Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS), respectively. The data on physical activity were collected by types of physical activity and the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ-SF).ResultsDuring the COVID-19 outbreak, about 52.3% of Chinese college students had inadequate physical activity. The rates of anxiety and depression symptoms were 31.0 and 41.8%, respectively. A high level of physical activity (β = −0.121, P < 0.001) was significantly closely associated with low anxiety, while a moderate (β = −0.095, P = 0.001), or high (β = −0.179, P < 0.001) level of physical activity was significantly closely associated with reduced depression after adjusting confounding demographic factors. Moreover, specific types of physical activity, such as stretching and resistance training, were negatively correlated with both anxiety and depression; doing household chores was negatively correlated with depression.ConclusionOur findings highlight specific levels and types of home-based physical activities that need to be taken into consideration to protect the mental health of college students during the COVID-19 epidemic.
Highlights
During the COVID-19 outbreak, many citizens were asked to stay at home in self-quarantine, which can pose a significant challenge with respect to remaining physically active and maintaining mental health
This study showed about 52.3% of Chinese college students engaged in inadequate physical activity during the COVID-19 outbreak, nearly more than twice the global prevalence of inadequate physical activity (27.5%) under non-outbreak conditions (Guthold et al, 2018)
College students who engaged in a high level of physical activity had lower anxiety than those who engaged in low levels of physical activity, while individuals who engaged in moderate and high levels of exercise had lower depression than those with a low level of physical activity. These results indicated that the association between physical activity and depression was greater than that between physical activity and anxiety during the COVID-19 crisis, which is consistent with a prior meta-analysis study, indicating that physical activity reduced depression with a medium effect (SMD = −0.5) and anxiety with a small effect (SMD = −0.38) (Rebar et al, 2015)
Summary
During the COVID-19 outbreak, many citizens were asked to stay at home in self-quarantine, which can pose a significant challenge with respect to remaining physically active and maintaining mental health. Many healthy college students are being asked to stay at home in self-quarantine, while implementing the emergency policy of “suspending classes without stopping learning.”. This means that tens of million Chinese college students are facing challenges in navigating online learning while coping with the stresses of daily life, which are expected to bring a mental health burden. Recent studies showed that the prevalence rates of anxiety and depression symptoms were around 24.9 and 9.0%, respectively, among Chinese college students during the COVID-19 outbreak (Cao et al, 2020; Tang et al, 2020). Psychiatrists and researchers should be aware of these mental health problems and their correlates and should develop measures and implement interventions appropriate for this situation (Liu et al, 2020; Rajkumar, 2020)
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