Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown on Academic Studies and Behavioral Pattern of Undergraduate Medical Students of Delhi

• Published in: Journal of primary care specialties (Online) Vol. 5; no. 3; pp. 162 - 167
• Main Authors: Dhamnetiya, Deepak, Goel, Shelesh Kumar, Goyal, Ritik, Abhishek, Kumar, Hitesh, Tanishq, Agarwal, Komal, Jha, Ravi Prakash
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01.09.2024
• ISSN: 2772-3615; 2772-3623
• DOI: 10.4103/jopcs.jopcs_29_23

Introduction: The novel coronavirus pandemic is currently a worldwide public health emergency. This study aimed to assess the impact of lockdown on academic studies and behavioral patterns of undergraduate medical students of Delhi and to assess the association of academic studies and behavioral patterns with sex and academic year. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in September 2020 through a prevalidated, semi-structured questionnaire. Data were analyzed using a statistical package for social sciences (version 16.0; SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). Mann–Whitney U and the Kruskal–Wallis test were applied to check the significant difference in median of 2 and more than two independent groups, respectively. A P < 0.05 was considered significant. Results: Of 163 students, 109 (66.9%) were male, and 54 (33.1%) were female. Ninety-seven (59.5%) students prefer regular classroom study, and 7 (4.2%) prefer online live classes. There is a statistically significant difference for study hours of males as compared to females before lockdown ( P = 0.024) and for students of 2 nd year and 1 st year also between 3 rd year and 1 st year ( P = 0.015) and for the completion of tests/assignments on time during lockdown ( P = 0.000) for 2 nd year and 3 rd year, also 2 nd year-final year and 1 st year-final year students. Conclusion: Medical education is highly skilled and practical; thus, it cannot be learned through online lectures, and students are losing interest in online lectures. Students’ behavioral patterns altered in lockdown as sitting idle at home increased social media usage and food intake.