The impact of COVID-19 on college students’ physical activity: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: We aimed to conduct a meta-analysis to assess the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on college students’ physical activity. METHODS: All cohort studies comparing college students undertaking physical exercise at school before the COVID-19 pandemic and physical exercise at home during the COVID-19 pandemic will be included in this review. We will use index words related to college students, physical exercise, and COVID-19 to perform literature searches in the PubMed, Medline, Embase, and CNKI databases, to include articles indexed as of June 20, 2021, in English and Chinese. Two reviewers will independently select trials for inclusion, assess trial quality, and extract information for each trial. The primary outcomes are exercise frequency, duration, intensity, and associated factors. Based on the Cochrane assessment tool, we will evaluate the risk of bias of the included studies. Revman 5.3 (the Cochrane collaboration, Oxford, UK) will be used for heterogeneity assessment, data synthesis, subgroup analysis, sensitivity analysis, and funnel plot generation. RESULT: We will discuss the impact of COVID-19 on college students’ physical activity. CONCLUSION: Stronger evidence about the impact of COVID-19 on college students’ physical activity will be provided to better guide teaching practice. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: PROSPERO CRD42021262390.