An Assessment of the Novel COVISTRESS Questionnaire: COVID-19 Impact on Physical Activity, Sedentary Action and Psychological Emotion

Abstract

Globally the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has triggered an economic downturn and a rise in unemployment. As a result, global communities have had to face physical, health, psychological and socio-economical related stressors. The purpose of this study was to assess and report the impact of isolation and effect of coronavirus on selected psychological correlates associated with emotions. Following ethical approval, a mixed methods observational study was conducted using the validated COVISTRESS questionnaire. Two observational study scenarios were evaluated namely “Prior” to the COVID-19 outbreak and “Currently”, i.e., during the COVID-19 pandemic. 10,121 participants from 67 countries completed the COVISTRESS questionnaire. From the questionnaire responses only questions that covered the participant’s occupation; sociodemographic details, isolation and impact of coronavirus were selected. Further analyses were performed on output measures that included leisure time, physical activity, sedentary time and emotions. All output measures were evaluated using the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) with an intensity ranging from 0–100. Descriptive statistics, Wilcoxon signed-rank test and Spearman correlational analysis were applied to the leisure time, physical activity, sedentary time and emotional feeling datasets; p = 0.05 was set as the significance level. Both males and females displayed similar output measures. The Wilcoxon signed rank test showed significant differences with respect to “Prior” COVID-19 and “Currently” for sedentary activity (Z = −40.462, p < 0.001), physical activity (Z = −30.751, p < 0.001) and all other emotional feeling output measures. A moderate correlation between “Prior” COVID-19 and “Currently” was observed among the Males (r = 0.720) in comparison to the Females (r = 0.639) for sedentary activity while weaker correlations (r < 0.253) were observed for physical activity and emotional feeling measurements, respectively. Our study reported incremental differences in the physical and psychological output measures reported, i.e., “Prior” COVID-19 and “Currently”. “Prior” COVID-19 and “Currently” participants increased their sedentary habits by 2.98%, and the level of physical activity reduced by 2.42%, depression levels increased by 21.62%, anxiety levels increased by 16.71%, and stress levels increased by 21.8%. There were no correlations (r) between leisure, physical activity and sedentary action (i.e., “Prior” = −0.071; “Currently” = −0.097); no correlations (r) between leisure physical activity and emotion (i.e., −0.071 > r > 0.081) for “Prior”; and poor correlations (r) between leisure, physical activity and sedentary action (i.e., −0.078 > r > 0.167) for “Current”. The correlations (r) between sedentary action and emotion for “Prior” and “Currently” were (−0.100 > r > 0.075) and (−0.040 > r > 0.041) respectively. The findings presented here indicate that the COVISTRESS project has created awareness in relation to the physical and psychological impact resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings have also highlighted individual distress caused by COVID-19 and associated health consequences for the global community.

Clinical Factors Associated with Atrial Fibrillation Detection on Single-Time Point Screening Using a Hand-Held Single-Lead ECG Device

“…As a consequence of the disruptive effects of COVID-19 pandemic, screening for AF may become even more important in the next future. Indeed, COVID-19 caused a polarization of care on the various manifestation of SARS-CoV-2 infection and on its management [39][40][41] that coupled with the fear and psychological distress diffused within the population [42][43][44][45] led to a marked reduction in access to Emergency Departments for acute cardiovascular conditions, including new-onset AF [46][47][48][49][50]. Some data from large datasets indicate that the risk of undiagnosed AF during COVID-19 lockdown is associated with an increased occurrence of stroke, related to lack of anticoagulation in patients at risk [48], thus making of great clinical value any initiatives of opportunistic screening for detecting unknown and previously undetected AF.…”

Effect of the COVID-19 lockdown on physical activity and sedentary behaviors in French children and adolescents: New results from the ONAPS national survey

“…All primary and secondary schools were completely closed and all the teaching activities were conducted virtually. As a direct consequence, physical activity (PA) and sedentary behaviors (SB) have been negatively affected, which has been associated with impaired well-being, mental, physical, and metabolic health [4] , [5] , [6] , [7] , [8] .…”

Explanatory Model of Perceived Stress in the General Population: A Cross-Sectional Study in Peru During the COVID-19 Context

“…According to another meta-analysis the overall prevalence of psychological distress during COVID-19 pandemic rose to 41.1%, being higher in patients with suspicion of infection (99.6%) when compared to the general population (31.1%) ( Wu et al, 2021 ). Additionally, according to a survey using the COVISTRESS questionnaire, assessed in 67 countries of the five continents, the self-reported symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress increased by 21.62, 16.71, and 21.8%, respectively ( Ugbolue et al, 2020 ). In order to evaluate symptoms of mental health impairment, generic scales like the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) ( Levis et al, 2019 ) and the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) ( Toussaint et al, 2020 ) had been broadly accepted for the appropriate screening measures.…”