Change in alcohol consumption and physical activity during the COVID-19 pandemic amongst 76 medical students

Abstract

Objective To investigate whether the COVID-19 pandemic has affected physical activity and alcohol consumption among medical students. Methods Cross-sectional survey study among 76 students in their second year of medical school. The Wilcoxon sign-rank test and Kruskal-Wallis H test were used to assess the difference between groups. Results Of 76 respondents, 68% were women, 66% were single and 34% were co-habiting. The median age was 21 years. Overall alcohol consumption decreased during the pandemic year by 12 g/week. Overall physical activity did not significantly change. The decrease in alcohol consumption was mostly caused by a change seen in a high tertile, change was −96 g/week. Alcohol consumption decreased more in women than in men, p = 0.0001. Conclusions It seems that alcohol consumption among medical students has decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic probably due to reduced social contacts and negative effect of social isolation. This decrease was seen especially among women and among students with higher alcohol consumption before the pandemic. Also, it seems that students had found their ways to remain active during the pandemic since the amount of leisure-time physical activity had not changed significantly.

Changes in Diet, Physical Activity, Alcohol Consumption, and Tobacco Use in Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review

“…7,11,12,14,16,18,20,24,25,28,35,36 Fifteen studies reported a decrease in people’s time doing PA during the COVID-19 pandemic: Bertrand et al 16 reported a decrease in time spent in moderate-vigorous PA per week from 85 min before to 65 min during the pandemic; these results are similar to those reported in other 14 studies. 8,9,15,19,22,26,28-31,33,35,37,38…”

“…The characteristics of the articles are presented in Table 1. We included 28 cross-sectional studies 7,8,10,[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][26][27][28][29][30][31][33][34][35][36][37][38] ,4 longitudinal studies. 9,11,25,32 There is one global study, 38 and 2 or more studies covered different countries: 2 from Saudi Arabia., 7,24 5 from Spain 10,25,33,34,36 ,4 from USA 11,14,27,29 ,2 from the UK 17,32 ,3 from Italy, 20,26,37 and 2 from China.…”

“…9,11,25,32 There is one global study, 38 and 2 or more studies covered different countries: 2 from Saudi Arabia., 7,24 5 from Spain 10,25,33,34,36 ,4 from USA 11,14,27,29 ,2 from the UK 17,32 ,3 from Italy, 20,26,37 and 2 from China. 13,28 Other countries that were included in one study were Japan, 9 Lithuania, 12 Canada, 16 Germany, 18 Australia, 21 Finland, 22 Hong Kong, 30 Sweden, 31 Rusia, 35 Thailand, 8 Mexico, 15 Brasil, 19 and Turkey. 23 Some studies reported on more than one lifestyle habit.…”

“…23 Some studies reported on more than one lifestyle habit. The included studies focused on the habit changes of: 7,10,12,14,16,[23][24][25][26]29,30,32,34,36,38 • • Physical activity (PA): 25 studies 7-12,14-16,18-20,22,24-26, 28-31,33,35-38 • • Alcohol consumption: 7 studies 12,14,17,21,22,27,29 • • Tobacco use: 3 studies 7,13,24 During the analysis of these lifestyle changes, 8 research themes were generated. These include dietary habits changes (food groups recommended for daily consumption and food groups not recommended for daily consumption), PA changes (PA level and sedentary behavior), alcohol consumption changes (frequency and quantity), and tobacco use changes (frequency and quantity of cigarette use habits).…”

Exploring changes in levels and patterns of physical activity in undergraduate medical and nursing students during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…For instance, our results appear to be consistent with some past studies, where a significant reduction in physical activity was seen in the medical student body ( 37 – 39 ). Other studies report physical activity levels were not significantly impacted by the pandemic, suggesting that more available time and medical students being more likely to pursue healthy behaviors to be possible explanations ( 40 , 41 ). However, it is important to note that prevalence of low physical activity was initially high in one of the aforementioned studies ( 40 ).…”