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. 2021 Aug;190(3):925-926.
doi: 10.1007/s11845-020-02423-z. Epub 2020 Nov 4.

The mental health and well-being benefits of exercise during the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study of medical students and newly qualified doctors in the UK

Conor Coyle  1 , Hanya Ghazi  2 , Ioannis Georgiou  3
Affiliations

The mental health and well-being benefits of exercise during the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study of medical students and newly qualified doctors in the UK

Conor Coyle et al. Ir J Med Sci. 2021 Aug.

Abstract

Background: University students have been uniquely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there is currently little data upon the measures that medical students and newly qualified doctors have taken to help their mental well-being and mood during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Aim: We aimed to identify the activities respondents found beneficial for their well-being and mental health and recorded a mood score from survey respondents.

Methods: A nationwide study was completed to investigate the mental health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic upon medical students and newly qualified doctors (interim foundation year one). We received 2075 respondents from across the UK.

Results: Physical activity was found to be the most common activity used by the survey respondents to help with their mental well-being (80.1%) (medical students, 83.7%; interim foundation doctors, 72.3%). Participants who stated that exercise helped their well-being had a mean score (SD) of 52.3 (20.7) which was significantly higher (P = 0.048) than those who reported that they did not exercise (49.8 (21.1)). Respondents who stated they had used exercise to help with their mental well-being had (on average) a higher mood score than those who did not. This was seen in both the medical student and interim foundation doctor subgroups.

Discussion: Exercise can help to benefit the well-being of medical students and interim foundation doctors. It is hoped that higher education providers and employers recognise the importance of promoting physical activity for the well-being of their students and staff, respectively.

Keywords: COVID-19; Coronavirus; Foundation doctors; Medical students; Mental health; Prospective study.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors of this paper declare that they have no conflicts of interest. All procedures performed involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the University of Oxford Medical Sciences Inter-Divisional Research Ethics Committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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