ASSOCIATION BETWEEN PHYSICAL ACTIVITY, STRESS, DEPRESSION, AND ANXIETY AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.65327/hsn.v10i2.2494Keywords:
physical activity, stress, depression, anxiety, sleep qualityAbstract
Students are a susceptible group with physiological health problems, including stress, depression and anxiety, and physical activity is a lifestyle factor that has been extensively studied as a potential protector. The relationship of physiological health status with weekly physical activity in university students was investigated in this study, which utilized a secondary data analysis approach involving 300 students. Physiological health outcomes included current stress, depression, and anxiety scores, while physical activity was categorised as low, moderate, or high frequency. Spearman rank correlations, Kruskal-Wallis tests, and descriptive statistics were employed, followed by regression analyses using age, gender, current CGPA and sleep quality as control factors and adjusting ordinal logistic regression. The most prevalent level of physical activity was moderate (56.3%), followed by low (24.7%) and high (19.0%). Stress (p = 0.563), sadness (p = 0.393), and anxiety (p = 0.377) did not significantly differ across the physical activity groups. Spearman correlations between physical activity and the three physiological health outcomes were negligible and non-significant, while adjusted ordinal logistic regression models likewise showed no statistically significant associations. Quality of sleep was weakly inversely related to stress and anxiety, and current CGPA was weakly inversely related to depression. The results also show that physical activity was not independently related to stress, depression, or anxiety in this sample and suggest that physiological health of students might be the result of several lifestyle, academic, and psychosocial factors.
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