COVID-19 Pandemic: Impact of Quarantine on Medical Students' Mental Wellbeing and Learning Behaviors

Sultan Ayoub Meo; Abdulelah Adnan Abukhalaf; Ali Abdullah Alomar; Kamran Sattar; David C Klonoff

doi:10.12669/pjms.36.COVID19-S4.2809

COVID-19 Pandemic: Impact of Quarantine on Medical Students' Mental Wellbeing and Learning Behaviors

Pak J Med Sci. 2020 May;36(COVID19-S4):S43-S48. doi: 10.12669/pjms.36.COVID19-S4.2809.

Authors

Sultan Ayoub Meo¹, Abdulelah Adnan Abukhalaf², Ali Abdullah Alomar³, Kamran Sattar⁴, David C Klonoff⁵

Affiliations

¹ Sultan Ayoub Meo Department of Physiology, College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
² Abdulelah Adnan Abukhalaf Department of Physiology, College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
³ Ali Abdullah Alomar Department of Physiology, College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
⁴ Kamran Sattar Department of Medical Education, College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
⁵ David C Klonoff Diabetes Research Institute, Mills-Peninsula Medical Center San Mateo, California, USA.

Abstract

Background and objectives: The novel coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic causes great public health and socioeconomic harms. Worldwide many countries implemented quarantine policies to minimize the spread of this highly contagious disease. The present study aim was to investigate the impact of quarantine on the medical students' mental wellbeing and learning behaviors.

Methods: In this descriptive study, we used a questionnaire with a Five-Point Likert Scale to collect the information. The questionnaire was distributed among 625 medical students through their emails with a response rate of 530 (84.8%), majority 294 (55.47%) being female. The survey questionnaire consisted of total 20 items; 12 items were related to psychological wellbeing and stress-allied queries and 08 items were about learning behaviors.

Results: The findings encompass two important characteristics related to quarantine, psychological wellbeing, and learning behaviors. A combined cohort of 234 medical students, either female or male, (which was 44.1% of the total responders) showed a sense of being emotionally detached from family, friends and fellow students, 125/ 530 (23.5%) medical students felt disheartened. Both female and male medical students showed a marked decrease in their overall work performance. Moreover, 56.2% of the total students (61.5% of the females and 49.5% of the males) felt a decrease in the time they spent studying.

Conclusions: Both female and male medical students have identified that quarantine has caused them to feel emotionally detached from family, fellows, and friends and decrease their overall work performance and study period. The findings also show that one fourth of the medical students who participated in this study felt disheartened during the quarantine period. The long-term quarantine due to COVID-19 pandemics may causes further worsening in the psychological and learning behaviors of these medical students.

Keywords: COVID 19; Learning Behaviors; Mental Wellbeing; Quarantine.