The Influence of COVID-19 on Physical Activity, Sleep Quality, and the Quality of Life in Adults by Age Group

ABSTRACT

Purpose@#The purpose of this study was to identify changes in physical activity, sleep quality, and quality of life (QOL) during COVID-19 in adults by age group. @*Methods@#An online survey was conducted on a total of 160 participants who were divided into three groups by age; young adults, middle-aged adults, and old adults. The participants responded to the self-reported assessment of the impact of social distancing during COVID-19, International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and Short Form-36 Health Survey (SF-36). Descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, and Pearson’s correlation were used for data analysis. @*Results@#There were significant differences between the three age groups in physical activity (p < 0.05) and PSQI (p < 0.01) and a post hoc analysis showed that the young adults’ group had significantly higher physical activity than the old adults’ group, while the old adults’ group had significantly lower scores of PSQI (better sleep quality) than the others. The young adults’ group showed a significant negative correlation between the stress from social distancing and QOL (r = -0.27, p < 0.05) and between PSQI and QOL (r = -0.48, p < 0.05). For the middle-aged adults’ group, there was a significant negative correlation between PSQI and QOL (r = -0.53, p < 0.05). The old adults’ group showed a significant negative correlation between the stress from social distancing and physical activity (r = -0.35, p < 0.05) and PSQI (r = -0.50, p < 0.05), while there was a significant positive correlation between physical activity and PSQI (r = 0.30, p < 0.05) and QOL (r = 0.30, p < 0.05). @*Conclusion@#The results of this study could be used as basic data for the promotion of physical and mental health in the post-COVID-19 era