The association between physical activity and prevalence of anxiety and depression in medical students during COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has affected medical students both physically and mentally. Medical students have had to take online classes, which may have decreased their physical activity (PA) and increased their risk of mental health. This research aimed to explore the association between mental health problems and PA levels. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 1st–6(th)year medical students, at a university in Southern Thailand; from September to October 2021. The participants completed online questionnaires; including, demographic data, Global Physical Activity, PHQ-9 and the GAD-7 questionnaire. The association between PA levels and mental health was assessed using ordinal logistic regression. RESULTS: Among 325 medical students, 42.8% were males and 51.1% were clinical medical students. The prevalence of moderate to severe depression and anxiety was 31% and 12.9%. In total, 49.7% of participants had low PA levels. Pre-clinical students had a higher risk of depression (OR 2.11 p-value 0.001) and anxiety (OR 2.20 p-value 0.045) than clinical students. We also found that moderate or high PA levels were not a significant factor with mental health status (p-value of depression 0.447, 0.823 and p-value of anxiety 0.362, p-value 0.574, respectively). CONCLUSION: There were a lot of medical students with moderate to severe depression and anxiety, and about half of those had low PA levels; especially, pre-clinical students that learned online study activities. There was no significant association between PA levels and mental health status. However, the faculty should reconsiderate their medical student to increase physical activities and redesign the curriculum to support their students during these challenging times.