The Relationship Between Physical Activity Level with Quality of Life and General Health among COVID-19 Recovered Individuals

Abstract

Background: New coronavirus (COVID-19) has a major impact on the individual's physical activity level (PAL); The COVID-19 quarantine outbreak caused a decrease in the PAL. Accordingly, it might also affect the general health and quality of life (QoL). This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between PAL with QoL and general health (GH) among COVID-19 recovered individuals (CRI).Methods: In this descriptive-analytical study, using the multi-stage (Cluster) sampling techniques, 890 CRI (male (n = 438) and female (n = 452)) were volunteered from different COVID-19 testing centers in Kermanshah province. After filling out the consent form, the PAL, GH, and QoL questionnaires were completed and anthropometric parameters were measured. The PAL was assessed using the international physical activity questionnaire (IPAQ-SF), GH was assessed using the GHQ questionnaire and the QoL was measured by the QoL questionnaire (short-form-SF-12). The independent t-test was used to compare the mean of variables between men and women and the Pearson correlation coefficient test was used to evaluate the relationship between variables using SPSS software version 24 at a significant level of (P≤0.05). Results: The findings of the present study showed that men and women with COVID-19 had inadequate PAL (876.11±40.23;739.08±27.02), insufficient GH (50.13±3.1; 54.15±4.28), and poor QoL (22.02±2.28; 19.23±1.87), respectively. The results also showed that men had significantly higher PAL (P=0.035), GH (P=0.047), and QoL (P=0.023) compared to women. Also, the results show that increasing the PAL improves GH and QoL. Conclusions: Considering the prevalence of COVID-19 and its negative impact on GH and QoL, maintaining adequate PAL can be considered as one of the effective strategies for improving physical and GH, and immune systems, by observing the hygiene protocol.