Effects of quarantine on Physical Activity prevalence in Italian Adults: a pilot study

PeerJ

article

Mario Mauro¹  Stefania Toselli²  Silvia Bonazzi²  Alessia Grigoletto²  Stefania Cataldi³  Gianpiero Greco³  Pasqualino Maietta Latessa¹ 

[1]Department of Life Quality Studies, University of Bologna

[2]Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna

[3]Basic Medical Sciences, Neurosciences and Sense Organs, University of Bari

关键词: Healthy habits;    COVID-19 quarantine;    Global health;    Citizen’s wellbeing;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.14123

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

Background COVID-19 is a respiratory disease that caused a global pandemic status in March 2020. Due to its fast diffusion, many governments adopted forced solutions including social restrictions, which could negatively affect citizens’ habits as physical activity. Our study aimed to investigate how and why the physical activity prevalence varied from the period before the quarantine up to the period after it, and understand what citizens thought of physical inactivity COVID-19 related to and whether they were satisfied with physical activity promotion during the lockdown. Methods A new questionnaire was created and administered online. A sample of 749 interviews (female = 552 (73.7%), male = 197 (26.3%)) was collected and analysed. Results The prevalence of people who were older than 50 years reduced both during and after the lockdown (P < 0.05) and the most common reason for which they have quitted physical activity practice was related to psychological problems (lockdown = 64.57%; post-lockdown = 62.17%). In addition, youngers seemed to be more sensitive than elders to unhealthy consequences generated by forced isolation (P < 0.05), and they believed that children/adolescents and older adults practised an insufficient amount of physical activity and/or sport, which could negatively impact public health. Conclusions Although many strategies were implemented during the lockdown to promote regular physical activity practice, several results suggested that quarantine negatively affected citizens’ habits. The future government should focus on adequate measures to improve health behaviours.

【 授权许可】

CC BY