Quality of life, sociodemographic indicators, physical activity, and health of university students in Southern Bahia during the pandemic of COVID-19

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the association between sociodemographic factors and quality of life, in addition to identifying the level of physical activity and sedentary behavior in university students, during the pandemic period of COVID-19. Sixty female university students (26.6±0.6 years) from undergraduate and graduate courses at a public university in the south of the state of Bahia, Brazil, participated in the study. Quality of life was assessed using the WHOQOL-Bref and physical activity using the short version of the IPAQ questionnaire. Descriptive and bivariate analyzes were performed. Partial and Spearman correlation coefficients were used to identify the relationship between sociodemographic variables and quality of life domains. A significance level of 5% was adopted. The prevalence of physical inactivity was high (38.3%) with a median of 360 min/day of time spent in the sitting position. An association was observed between the course/level of education and all domains of quality of life, ranging from weak to moderate, even controlling for covariates (COVID-19 and Comorbidities) (r=0.278 to r=0.507; p<0.05). Likewise, the association between age and the Physical and Psychological domains remained even after control. With the exception of income, the sociodemographic variables were partially associated with the domains of quality of life in the university students in this study, suggesting a small influence of the covariates related to health in reducing the strength of the correlations. Finally, the prevalence of physical inactivity was high, in addition to having similar time spent sitting during the week and weekend.