COVID-19 vaccination status is associated with physical activity in German-speaking countries: the COR-PHYS-Q cohort study

  1. F. Schwendinger
  2. H. T. Boeck
  3. D. Infanger
  4. M. Faulhaber
  5. U. Tegtbur
  6. A. Schmidt-Trucksäss

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Abstract

Background

To examine the association between COVID-19 vaccination status and physical activity (PA), sporting behavior, as well as barriers to PA in adults in Switzerland, Germany, and Austria.

Methods

A total of 1516 adults provided complete responses to our online questionnaire sent out in August 2021. Information about self-reported PA categories, sporting behavior, barriers to PA, and COVID-19 vaccination status were gathered. Main analyses were done using multiple linear regression adjusted for relevant parameters.

Results

We found a significant association of vaccination status with total PA ( p = .011), vigorous PA ( p = .015), and moderate PA ( p = .001) but not transport-related PA or sedentary time. Unvaccinated adults tended to have more total and vigorous PA than those vaccinated once (ratios of geometric means: 1.34 and 1.60, respectively) or twice (1.22 and 1.09, respectively). Yet, not sufficient evidence was available to confirm this. There was no between-group difference in the contribution of leisure time, work-related, or transport-related PA to total PA. Vaccination status was not associated with sporting behavior except for jogging as the primary intensive type of sports. Finally, there were no significant differences in any of the COVID-19 specific barriers to PA between groups.

Conclusion

Our data showed that vaccination status is associated with PA even in summer, where the number of COVID-19 cases was low and the severity of safety measures was mild. These findings may enhance future research and improve/extend COVID-19-specific PA guidelines.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2022.01.01.21268576: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    2.4 Questionnaire: The online questionnaire was created in German and distributed with Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap).
    REDCap
    suggested: (REDCap, RRID:SCR_003445)

    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:
    4.6 Strengths and limitations: The main strength of this study is its transnational prospective study design. It allows observing the impact of the situation at the time (e.g. differences in severity of implemented safety measures and number of new infections) between the respective countries on the aforementioned associations. Together with the results of survey round 2 and 3, the influence of different time points (i.e. August & December 2021, August 2022) on these associations can likewise be observed. Another strength is the application of innovative statistical methods (i.e. two-step procedure26-28) in the area of sports medicine. Several potential limitations should be discussed. Due to the design of the study, the group sizes were not balanced. This may be a reason for not reaching statistical significance in some of the post-hoc analyses. Moreover, the study cohort may likely not be representative of the German-speaking general population, especially because of the high percentage of female participants and individuals with a university degree. Nonetheless, the results are adaptable to a population of well-educated individuals.

    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.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2022.01.01.21268576v1 on medRxiv