The impact of Covid-19 on the lifestyle of tertiary students

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic altered people’s life dramatically worldwide with major concerns of economic, political, scientific, and public health. The impact on the lifestyle behavior of the young generation was larger than anticipated. To understand better about the influence factors on the lifestyle of tertiary students in a NZ polytechnic due to Covid-19 pandemic and the correlations, a questionnaire was administrated online by SurveyMonkey to investigate the impact of Covid-19 on: life overall; study time and the reasons for changing; stress level; living conditions; eating patterns; choice of food; physical activity level; social activities; and sleep time. Data were analysed by descriptive statistics, frequency, and correlations to explore the patterns of the influences and the impact of Covid-19. The results showed that the extent of impact of Covid-19 on students’ life in general was 3.8 (from 0: not at all to 5: a lot). The main reasons, for students who either needed an extension or time-off, or changed to part-time study, were increased stress level (63%), financial reasons (16%), and family responsibilities (14%). For the comparison aspects (prior vs post-Covid-19 lockdown), meaningful differences were observed with physical activity level (3.26 vs 2.50) (from 1: very light to 5: very active); and the importance of factor that influenced choice of food: convenience (3.62 vs 3.41), nutrition value (3.65 vs 3.50) (from 1: very less important to 5: very important). Students were anxious because of fear of infection, lacked physical exercise due to lockdown, and were having trouble in sleeping. The results of the study would provide useful information on the impact on daily life for tertiary students in pandemic times. The research findings would inform health professionals of these influences for appropriate policy decision and public health practice to promote a healthy lifestyle during a pandemic.