Quality of Life and Depressive Symptoms Among Peruvian University Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic

  1. Joel Figueroa-Quiñones
  2. Julio Cjuno
  3. Daniel Machay-Pak
  4. Miguel Ipanaqué-Zapata

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Abstract

To determine the factors associated with quality of life and depressive symptoms in Peruvian university students during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods

Multicentre study in 1,634 students recruited by convenience sampling. The quality of life (QoL) was assessed with the European Quality of Life-5 Dimensions at three levels (EQ-5D-3L) and depressive symptoms with the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). To assess factors associated with QoL and depressive symptoms, linear regressions and fitted regressions were used, with robust coefficients of variance information (β).

Results

A 345 (21.1%) reported problems in performing daily activities, 544 (33.3%) reported pain and discomfort, 772 (47.2%) were moderately/very anxious or depressed. Furthermore, 207 (12.7%) had moderate-severe and severe depressive symptoms. Men reported better QoL than women (β: 3.2; 95% CI: 1.1, 5.4; p = 0.004) and fewer depressive symptoms (β: −0.7; 95% CI: −1.3, −0.2; p = 0.011). Ayacucho’s residents had more depressive symptoms than Ancash’s residents (β: 0.8; 95% CI: 0.1, 1.5; p = 0.022) and Piura’s residents had fewer depressive symptoms than Ancash’s residents (β: −1.195% CI: −1.8, −0.3, p = 0.005). Students who left home during quarantine reported more depressive symptoms (β: 0.7, 95% CI: 0.2, 1.2, p = 0.006).

Conclusion

Problems performing daily activities, pain and discomfort, as well as mild to severe depressive symptoms were found in more than three-quarters of the sample. Authorities could consider depression care to improve quality of life in regions where high rates of infection occurred during the pandemic.

Article activity feed

  1. Version published to 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.781561
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.12.04.411330: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementConsent: Finally, the students who decided to participate in the study and entered the online survey were informed in detail and asked to accept the informed consent, to later conduct the survey.
    IRB: Ethical principles: This study was approved by the Institutional Committee on Research Ethics (CIEI) at Los Angeles Catholic University in Chimbote.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variableThe covariates that participated in the study were: age (in tertiles), sex (male or female), department of residence (Ancash, Ayacucho, Lima and Piura), marital status (single/separate/widowed/divorced and married/cohabitant), occupation (studies and works, only work), left home during quarantine (no and yes), decreased family income in quarantine (no and yes), lives alone (no and yes) and family with chronic illness (no and yes).

    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:
    Strengths and limitations: The strength of our study lies in the fact that it is the first study to report updated evidence on the state of quality of life and mental health of university students in Peru after the Covid-19 pandemic confinement. However, the study has some limitations. Due to the COVID-19 confinement, the sampling used was non-probabilistic which reduces the representativeness of the population findings, however, we reached an important sample size in different departments of Peru, which produces consistent evidence from university students, in addition the results obtained are similar to other studies conducted (29,42). Likewise, the instrument used (EQ-5D-3L) to evaluate the quality of life was not validated in Peru, however, this instrument has been used in other studies and populations in Peru (21,22), in addition it was translated into Spanish by the EuroQol Group and has been adapted in other countries and languages (20).

    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:
    • No conflict of interest statement was detected. If there are no conflicts, we encourage authors to explicit state so.
    • No funding statement was detected.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.12.04.411330v1 on bioRxiv