Healthy Lifestyle Behaviors Are Major Predictors of Mental Wellbeing During COVID-19 Pandemic Confinement: A Study on Adult Arabs in Higher Educational Institutions

Abstract

Background In previous times, infectious diseases affected the quality of human life during home confinement. This study investigated the influence of home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak on lifestyle, mental wellbeing, nutritional status, and sleeping pattern. Method: An online multicategory questionnaire was distributed to collect Demographical information and combined the following tools: Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ), International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ), WHO-5 wellbeing score, and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). A snowball none-discriminate sampling procedure was followed to collect data from people attending or working at higher institution had covering the period between Mar/00/2020 and Apr/24/2020. A total of 1723 completed responses (917 Males 37.4 ± 13.4 yrs. old and (806 Females 32.2 ± 11.5 yrs. old) were collected. Results Female participants had significantly lower mental health scores as compared to males (53.9% vs 46.1%). on Mental wellbeing score was better among participants with medium and high Physical Activity Levels (p < 0.00). Additionally, mental wellbeing score was significantly improved by dietary quality and sleeping score (p < 0.001). However, physical activity was by far the major determinants of mental health score. Conclusion Factors such as PA, Diet, sleeping patterns were associated with mental wellbeing during COVID-19 confinement among Arab participants.

The Lifestyles of Palestinians during Corona Virus Pandemic: A cross sectional Study from Palestinian West Bank

“…We report high rate of deteriorated mental wellbeing in our study including sense of saddness, loss of interest in doing loved things and experience of anxiety. In previous work in a study done in UAE, lower mental quality was associated was more prevalent among females and better mental wellbeing was associated with better diet, better physical activity and better sleep scores (11). Corona virus pandemic was de nitely linked to less ability to go out and perform outdoor activities which could be associated with reduced hormones which could in uence the mood such as endorphins and serotonin.…”

“…Corona virus pandemic was de nitely linked to less ability to go out and perform outdoor activities which could be associated with reduced hormones which could in uence the mood such as endorphins and serotonin. In addition this could be linked to exposure to UV radiation and so lower formation of vitamin D which is protective from depression (11). A longitudinal study among a sample of participants from UK indicated across waves of pandemic showed that symptoms of anxiety, entrapment decreased with time, but depressive symptoms did not change and positive feelings increased which could be a positive indication on the direction of mental wellbeing (12).…”