Physical activity and mental health among college students during COVID-19 pandemic
Oral Presentation C3.4
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14288/hfjc.v14i3.662Keywords:
Apple Watch, COVID Disruption, Mobile HealthAbstract
Purpose: In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) caused many university campus lockdowns after spring break in which students were required to leave campus and continue their academic work as usual, remotely. The University of Vermont Wellness Environment (WE) program is an academic year long wellness behavioral change promotion program that has collected data before and during the COVID outbreak. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the change of physical activity (PA) levels and mental health in a large cohort of U.S. college students before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Students were given an Apple Watch to track their daily exercise time and a daily survey measured mood, anxiety, and stress in Spring 2020. A total of 113 WE and 54 non-WE college freshman (132 female and 35 male) were included in this study. Self-perceived COVID-19 disruption and COVID-19 related questions were assessed at the end-of-year questionnaire. Generalized linear mixed models were used to examine the association of PA and mental health before and during COVID-19 remote learning. The models also controlled for gender, race, and socioeconomic status. Results: College students became significantly less active during COVID remote learning compared to before (p<.05). In the univariate model, mood (β=0.95, p<.05) and stress (β=-0.83, p<.05) each had a significant association with exercise time separately. Anxiety (β=0.58, p=.076) had a borderline association with exercise time in the univariate model. Significant interaction effects were found between time (before and during COVID) with anxiety and stress but not mood. Students had similar anxiety levels before COVID, but the active students had significantly lower anxiety levels compared to their sedentary counterparts (p<.05). Active students had significantly higher stress levels than sedentary students before COVID, but their stress levels were similar during COVID (p<.05). Conclusions: Exercise helped college students to manage anxiety and stress during the COVID lockdown.
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Copyright (c) 2021 Yang Bai, William Copeland, Azilee Curl, Vinay Devadanam, Lindsay Kimball, Hakeem Yousef, Sam Pasqualoni, Jeffrey Rettew, Jim Hudziak
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