Résumé
The COVID‐19 pandemic has led to a global crisis resulting in lockdowns worldwide. Studies found that these could amplify negative affects predictive of disturbances in time perception. However, all existing studies on this topic concentrated on the general population during a lockdown at home. There was no research on university students living in dormitories. This study fills a gap in the literature by investigating the affective states and awareness of the passage of time of Chinese university students during an exceptional dormitory lockdown. Using a snowball sampling approach, this web‐based study recruited 225 volunteers (136 girls, 17−27 years old) during a dormitory lockdown. The online survey consisted of questions on demographic information, affective states (the Chinese version of the depression anxiety stress scales‐21 (DASS‐21) on depression, anxiety, and stress), and sense of the passage of time (the translated version of the assessment of passage of time over daily, weekly and yearly periods). The researchers shared the questionnaire link via the social media application WeChat. The study applied descriptive statistics and column charts to represent students' affective states and sense of the passage of time under extreme conditions and Pearson's correlation analysis to examine the impact of affective states on their sense of time. The study's results indicate that the dormitory lockdown caused a significant increase in all depression, anxiety, and stress categories of the DASS‐21, as well as a distortion of the sense of time passing. However, the direction of the distortion differed from that in previous studies. Moreover, a Pearson correlation analysis showed that none of the three negative affects could be associated with students' sense of time. The findings of this study indicate an increased vulnerability of students due to the lockdown. Their emotions were strongly affected, requiring particular interventions to preserve their mental well‐being. In addition, they showed a different distortion direction of time passage. Finally, they differed in the correlations between negative affect and the sense of passage of time compared to the general population in lockdown at home. This shows a need to investigate the impact of psychological states on students' routines and quality of life in emergencies. This study's scope should be expanded by incorporating additional factors pertaining to the passage of time and by integrating cross‐cultural comparisons. Practitioner Points 1. The dormitory lockdown caused a significant increase in all depression, anxiety, and stress categories of the DASS‐21.2. The dormitory lockdown caused a distortion of the sense of time passing, which differed from that in previous studies.3. None of the three negative affects could be associated with students' sense of time.
Résumé
ObjectiveThis study examined the associations between type-2 diabetes (T2DM) and self-reported/familial COVID-19 infection and investigated health-related outcomes among those with diabetes during Chinas nationwide quarantine. MethodsThe 2020 China COVID-19 Survey was administered anonymously via social media (WeChat) across China. It was completed by 10,545 adults in all of mainland Chinas 31 provinces. The survey consisted of 74 items covering sociodemographic characteristics, preventive measures for COVID-19, lifestyle behaviors, and health-related outcomes during the period of quarantine. Regression models examined associations among study variables, adjusting for covariates. ResultsDiabetes was associated with a six-fold increased risk of reporting COVID-19 infection among respondents or their family members. Among patients with diabetes, individuals who rarely wore masks had double the risk of suspected COVID-19 infection compared with those who always wore masks, with an inverse J-shaped relationship between face mask wearing and suspected COVID-19 infection. People with T2DM tended to have both poor knowledge of COVID-19 and poor compliance with preventive measures, despite perceiving a high risk of personal infection (40.0% among respondents reporting T2DM and 8.0% without T2DM). Only 54-55% of these respondents claimed to consistently practice preventive measures, including wearing face masks. Almost 60% of those with T2DM experienced food or medication shortages during the quarantine period, which was much higher than those without T2DM. Importantly, respondents who experienced medication shortages reported a 63% higher COVID-19 infection rate. ConclusionsT2DM was associated with an increased risk of self-reported personal and family member COVID-19 infection, which is mitigated by consistent use of face masks. FundingThe project is supported in part by research grants from the China Medical Board (Grant number: 16-262), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant Number: 2017YFC0907200 & 2017YFC0907201), the University Alliance of the Silk Road (Grant number: 2020LMZX002), and Xian Jiaotong University Global Health Institute. Research in ContextO_ST_ABSEvidence before this studyC_ST_ABSDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become increasingly clear that the risk factors for initial infection and subsequent poor health outcomes include, but are not limited to, social vulnerability, economic status, older age, and obesity. While community-wide masking has been recommended by the World Health Organization to control COVID-19, its overall effectiveness has not been clearly evaluated. Added value of this studyThrough an anonymous survey disseminated and promoted through WeChat, the largest social media platform in China, we sought to understand the impact of COVID-19 on the health, wellbeing, and health-related behaviors of adults in China. Specifically, this study examined how individuals with chronic diseases managed the threat, including their COVID-19 related knowledge, attitudes, and adherence to preventive measures such as wearing face masks, and their disease-related self-care. Implications of the available evidenceThis study demonstrates that type-2 diabetes mellitus is associated with an increased risk of COVID-19 infection, which is mitigated by consistent use of face masks.