High sitting time is a behavioral risk factor for slow improvement in depression over the 8 weeks of the April-May 2020 COVID-19 pandemic
Front. Psychiatry, October 1, 2021| https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.741433
Commentary
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to concerns about a decrease in physical activity (MVPA) and deterioration in mental health from an increase in sedentary behavior.
The long-term impact of these changes and their interrelationships will be unknown.
The aim of the researchers in this study was to investigate the relationship between self-reported changes in activity behavior and mental health over an 8-week period following the COVID-19 outbreak.
The study had a baseline of April 3-10, 2020, and recruited participants from all 50 states and the District of Columbia from convenience and snowball sampling. The online survey was available for eight consecutive weeks. (April 3, 2020-June 3, 2020)
The primary exposure involved sitting, looking at a screen, and surveying the self-reported time spent in the MVPA. Results included assessments of depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and positive mental health (PMH).
These findings showed that the interaction (p <0.05) had a slightly higher marginal effect on depressive symptoms for the 90th percentile sitting time than for the 10th percentile at baseline. (5.8 [95% confidence interval = 5.5-6.2] vs. 5.7 [5.4-6.1])
Differences that increased with time were also evident. (Week 8: 3.5 [3.2-3.9] vs. 2.7 [2.4-2.9]) However, other interactions over time were insignificant.
Screening time was found to be negatively associated with PMH and positively associated with depressive and anxiety symptoms (p <0.05). Also, sitting time was negatively associated with PMH (p <0.05).
These results suggest that rapid changes in sitting patterns (e.g., due to pandemics) may have a lasting impact on depressive symptoms, and that strategies that target the most affected populations (i.e., young adults, women) and/or focus on reducing sitting time are important to prevent long-term mental health consequences due to COVID-19 or other large-scale behavioral changes in the general population, the researchers explained.
