Physical activity, screen exposure and sleep among students during the pandemic of COVID-19

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the levels of health-related behaviours (physical activity, screen exposure and sleep status) among Chinese students from primary, secondary and high schools during the pandemic of COVID-19, as well as their changes compared with their status before the pandemic. A cross-sectional online survey of 10,933 students was conducted among 10 schools in Guangzhou, China, between 8th and 15th March, 2020. After getting the informed consent from student’s caregivers, an online questionnaire was designed and used to obtain time spending on health-related behaviours during the pandemic of COVID-19, as well as the changes compared with 3 months before the pandemic, which was completed by students themselves or their caregivers. Students were stratified by regions (urban, suburban, exurban), gender (boys and girls), and grades (lower grades of primary school, higher grades of primary schools, secondary schools and high schools). Data were expressed as number and percentages and Chi-square test was used to analyse difference between groups. Overall, the response rate of questionnaire was 95.3% (10,416/10,933). The median age of included students was 13.0 (10.0, 16.0) years and 50.1% (n = 5,219) were boys. 41.4%, 53.6% and 53.7% of total students reported less than 15 min per day in light, moderate and vigorous activities and 58.7% (n = 6,113) reported decreased participation in physical activity compared with the time before pandemic. Over 5 h of screen time spending on online study was reported by 44.6% (n = 4,649) of respondents, particular among high school students (81.0%). 76.9% of students reported increased screen time compared with the time before pandemic. Inadequate sleep was identified among 38.5% of students and the proportion was highest in high school students (56.9%). Our study indicated that, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the school closure exerted tremendous negative effects on school-aged children’s health habits, including less physical activity, longer screen exposure and irregular sleeping pattern.

Objective Behavioral Measures in Children before, during, and after the COVID-19 Lockdown in Israel

“…The correlation is that the reduced physical activity observed in the current study might have a negative impact of children's health. The results of the current study provide objective support to the findings of prior studies using parent-reported questionnaires that investigated the impact of the pandemic in children around the world and found physical activity to be significantly reduced by social distancing restrictions [6][7][8][9][10][11]45,46]. Evidence has already been reported regarding negative short-term health outcomes of the pandemic.…”

“…Previous reports regarding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children's sleep using questionnaires are equivocal. Some studies found that sleep duration increased during the pandemic [6,7,9,10,46]. Nathan et al, found no difference in sleep duration [8], while Abid et al, found no difference in duration, but observed poorer sleep quality [45].…”

Pre-pandemic sleep behavior and adolescents’ stress during Covid-19: a prospective longitudinal study

“…However, most of the studies have weaknesses that have limited their contributions. With three exceptions, all of the studies were either cross-sectional [ 36 , 39 ] which does not allow causal inferences to be made regarding the impact of COVID-19 on sleep, or retrospective [ 38 , 41 ] and therefore, subjected to recall bias. The three exceptions were longitudinal studies.…”

The Impact of Quarantine on Sleep Quality and Psychological Distress During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Based on the literature review, we included isolation status, age, gender, provinces of Saudi Arabia, social interaction, social media use, current covid-19 infection, symptomatic covid-19 infection, existing medical comorbidity, shiftwork, poor sleep, psychological distress and psychotropic or sleep medication use as independent variables in univariate analysis. [29][30][31][32][33][34] "Isolation" as well as variables with a P-value of less than 0.1 in the univariable analysis were included in the multivariable analysis. We reported the odds ratio and associated 95% Confidence Intervals (95% CI).…”