Contacts and behaviours of university students during the COVID-19 pandemic at the start of the 2020/2021 academic year

  1. Emily Nixon
  2. Adam Trickey
  3. Hannah Christensen
  4. Adam Finn
  5. Amy Thomas
  6. Caroline Relton
  7. Clara Montgomery
  8. Gibran Hemani
  9. Jane Metz
  10. Josephine G. Walker
  11. Katy Turner
  12. Rachel Kwiatkowska
  13. Sarah Sauchelli
  14. Leon Danon
  15. Ellen Brooks-Pollock

Reviewed by

Read the full article

Listed in

Log in to save this article

Abstract

University students have unique living, learning and social arrangements which may have implications for infectious disease transmission. To address this data gap, we created CONQUEST (COroNavirus QUESTionnaire), a longitudinal online survey of contacts, behaviour, and COVID-19 symptoms for University of Bristol (UoB) staff/students. Here, we analyse results from 740 students providing 1261 unique records from the start of the 2020/2021 academic year (14/09/2020–01/11/2020), where COVID-19 outbreaks led to the self-isolation of all students in some halls of residences. Although most students reported lower daily contacts than in pre-COVID-19 studies, there was heterogeneity, with some reporting many (median = 2, mean = 6.1, standard deviation = 15.0; 8% had ≥ 20 contacts). Around 40% of students’ contacts were with individuals external to the university, indicating potential for transmission to non-students/staff. Only 61% of those reporting cardinal symptoms in the past week self-isolated, although 99% with a positive COVID-19 test during the 2 weeks before survey completion had self-isolated within the last week. Some students who self-isolated had many contacts (mean = 4.3, standard deviation = 10.6). Our results provide context to the COVID-19 outbreaks seen in universities and are available for modelling future outbreaks and informing policy.

Article activity feed

  1. Version published to 10.1038/s41598-021-91156-9
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.12.09.20246421: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: Ethical approval: Ethical approval was granted on the 14th May 2020 by the Health Sciences University Research Ethics Committee at the University of Bristol (ID = 104903), with four amendment requests approved on the 22nd May 2020, 9th June 2020, 27th August 2020 and 7th September 2020.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variableThese models included variables on: age group (17-24, 25-44, 45-64, 65-79, 80+ years of age), gender (male, female/other - the “other” category had too few individuals and so were grouped with the largest category), under/postgraduate status, current study year (1, 2, 3, 4+), symptoms during the previous week, cardinal symptoms (loss of taste or smell, fever, persistent cough(20)) during the previous week, self-isolating in the prior week, self-reporting being in a high-risk group, household size (1, 2-3, 4-5, 6-9, 10+, missing), and COVID-19 status (never had, previously thought they had it, previously tested positive for it, thought they had it in the last 2 weeks, tested positive for it in the last 2 weeks).

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    However, this study has some limitations. Firstly, the number of contacts was asked for the previous day, whilst the questions on self-isolation and symptoms asked about the previous week, and a window of 14-days was used to define current COVID-19. This discrepancy in time-windows used for different questions could lead to difficulties in interpreting results, particularly regarding contact patterns for those that had previously been isolating during the prior week but not on the previous day, possibly leading to higher reported contacts for this group. Secondly, the survey questions were devised early in the pandemic when less was known about the epidemiology and possible interventions. We did not capture whether participants had a negative test for COVID-19, which would have been useful information. Thirdly, in order to capture sufficient detail on contacts, the questionnaire is fairly long (5-10 minutes) and complicated, which may deter those with lots of contacts or with little available time from completing it, which may mean it is not representative. Some participants have not filled in their household sizes, which perhaps shows that some people struggled to answer the questionnaires due to the complexity. We include clear instructions defining “contacts” in the survey; however, some people may not read this text or interpret the instructions differently and so there could be variation in what people considered a contact to be. Selection bias for those who particularly...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.12.09.20246421v1 on medRxiv