Assessment of Mental Health and Quality of Life Status of Undergraduate Students in Indonesia during COVID-19 Outbreak: A Cross-Sectional Study

Sustaining Quality of Life with Education-Based Treatment for Hypertension Patients During COVID-19 Adaptation

Purpose: Determine the impact of education-based treatment on sustaining quality of life during COVID-19 adaptation. Designs: A randomized, 2-group, structured, holistic education-based intervention within eight weeks in preserving total quality of life (QoL) for hypertension patients with conventional care. Methods: Utilizing randomized controlled trials, 380 patients with hypertension are separated into two groups and evaluated. The patients are separated into two groups totaling 190 individuals each group. The intervention group is treated with a holistic education-based intervention. After two months, the EQ-5D-5L is used to evaluate the quality of life. Findings: The QoL pretest for the intervention group revealed that 25 (13.2%) patients had good QoL (Score = 1), while the QoL posttest revealed that the number of patients with good QoL had grown to 48 (25.3%). Using Kolmogorov-Smirnov for data analysis yielded non-normally distributed data. The p-value for the Wilcoxon signed ranks test is .001. Conclusions: The intervention group is better equipped to deal with COVID-19 and has a higher quality of life. Education-based hypertension treatment can sustain a high quality of life.

Factors associated with cognitive impairment and the quality-of-life among COVID-19 survivors working as healthcare workers

Prolonged physical and mental health changes, known as post-COVID conditions (PCC), could impair the quality-of-life (QoL) of healthcare workers. The aim of this study was to identify factors that contribute to cognitive impairments and QoL among COVID-19 survivors working as healthcare workers. This cross-sectional study involved healthcare workers at Prof. Dr. Chairuddin P. Lubis Universitas Sumatera Utara Hospital, Medan, Indonesia. The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) was used to assess the cognitive function, while the World Health Organization Quality-of-Life Brief Version (WHOQOL-BREF) questionnaire was used to evaluate the QoL. Factors associated with cognitive and QoL status were examined using Mann-Whitney and Chi-squared tests. A total of 100 COVID-19 survivors were included in the study, most of whom were female (74%), aged ≤35 years (95%), and were doctors (62%). Only 22% of the participants had a normal BMI, 93% had a history of mild COVID-19, and 54% had one comorbidity. The Overall MoCA score averaged 24.18±2.86, indicating mild cognitive impairment among the groups. The distribution of MoCA scores had similar patterns with no significant differences based on age, gender, comorbidities, BMI, COVID-19 severity, and frequency of COVID-19 infection. Interestingly, the number of vaccine doses received by the participants had a statistically significant associated with MoCA scores of which those receiving more than two doses had higher cognitive scores than those with only two doses (p=0.008). Based on categorized MoCA scores (normal vs cognitive impairment), none assessed factors were not significantly associated with cognitive outcomes. The WHOQOL-BREF scores ranged from 62.5 to 95.5, with a mean±SD of 83.67±7.03. None of the assessed factors were associated with WHOQOL-BREF scores among COVID-19 survivors. These findings highlight the need for further study to explore the protective role of vaccination frequency in cognitive impairment and the factors underlying the resilience in QoL among survivors.

Relationship between depression and quality of life among students: a systematic review and meta-analysis

The objectives of this systematic review were to estimate the prevalence of depression and to identify the relationship between depression and quality of life (QOL) among high school and university students. Literature search was performed in the Scopus, Embase, PubMed, Scielo, CINAHL and Web of Science databases, following the PRISMA methodology. The results were presented through descriptive approaches and meta-analysis. Thirty-six studies met the eligibility criteria, and twenty-six were included in the meta-analysis. The prevalence of depressive symptoms was 27% (95% CI 0.21-0.33) among students, being high school and university students was 25% (95% CI 0.14-0.37) and 27% (95% CI 0.20-0.34), respectively, and most studies have shown that depression was associated with low QOL. Among the limitations of the study is the difficulty of generalizing the results found, considering the large sample of health students. New studies should be conducted considering the severity, duration, and patterns of depressive symptoms in high school and university students, to better understand the relationship between depression and QOL.