Impact of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on quality of life and perceived stress in undergraduate physiotherapy students: An observational study

Background: Global pandemic caused by the Novel Coronavirus had resulted in nationwide lockdown from March 2020 to July 2020 and then in April 2021 to June 2021 due to which the undergraduate physiotherapy students had to shift to online education format which resulted in increased screen time, and reduced physical activity. Additionally, COVID positive reports in the family along with hospitalizations or mortality increased stress. Thus, the present study aimed to explore how these factors impacted the quality of life and stress levels of undergraduate physiotherapy students. Aim: To determine the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown and the lifestyle changes on the perceived stress and quality of life of Undergraduate Physiotherapy students. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional observational analytical study was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee. Self-made questionnaire was face validated by three experts which included demographics, affection and stressors of COVID-19 online lectures, due to the pandemic, and the socioeconomic environment and support. The online google form which included the consent form, self-made questionnaire and the outcome measures (international physical activity questionnaire, perceived stress scale and world health organization quality of life) were emailed to the participants and forwarded through social media platforms. The forms were circulated to 200 students and 110 completed forms (response rate=55%) were included in the study. Statistical Analysis Used: The demographics information, affection due to and stressors of COVID-19 pandemic, and physical activity by the participants were analysed by descriptive statistics and percentiles. Correlations of physical activity with perceived stress and four domains of world health organization quality of life were done using Spearman's rho. All the data was analysed using SPSS software (version 26) and Microsoft excel. Results: The present study found that despite the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown about 80.9% of undergraduate physiotherapy had maintained moderate to vigorous levels of physical activity but because of the stressors of COVID-19 students had moderate to high levels of perceived stress (23.3 + 6) and lower quality of life in 3 out of 4 domains scoring poorly - namely the physical, psychological and environmental domains. Conclusion: Due to the online educational format and uncertainty of exam schedules along with the COVID-19 related stressors (COVI