ArticleInternational journal of environmental research and public health2021
Changes in Physical Activity Are Associated with Corresponding Changes in Psychological Well-Being: A Pandemic Case Study.
Article in International journal of environmental research and public health, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Changes in School-Based Physical Activity and Well-Being Among Adolescents Before and After the COVID-19 Pandemic.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Association of Daily Step Count With Depressive Symptoms in Patients With Major Depressive Disorder Using a Smartphone App (ReMAP): Longitudinal Study.JMIR mental health · 2026Article
- The Pandemic's Impact on Mental Well-Being in Sweden: A Longitudinal Study on Life Dissatisfaction, Psychological Distress, and Worries.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- Predicting wellbeing over one year using sociodemographic factors, personality, health behaviours, cognition, and life events.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- How Have Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior, Changed during the COVID-19 Pandemic? A Swedish Repeated Cross-Sectional Design Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Active and Happy? Physical Activity and Life Satisfaction among Young Educated Women.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- [Physical inactivity in young people during home confinement due to COVID-19].Revista medica del Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social · 2022Article
- People's Perception of Well-Being during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study in Japan.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Individuals' Assessments of Their Own Wellbeing, Subjective Welfare, and Good Life: Four Exploratory Studies.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Changes in Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Swedish Population Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Protective effects of physical activity on mental health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic.PloS one · 2022Article
- An Infectious Silver Lining: Is There a Positive Relationship Between Recovering From a COVID Infection and Psychological Richness of Life?Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Societal crises and personal challenges are often followed by substantial changes in physical activity. Is there a link between such changes and psychological well-being? Seeking to answer this question, we conducted a correlational study on a representative sample in Sweden during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic (N = 1035). About 49% of the sample had decreased their physical activity compared to their self-reported activity level prior to the pandemic, whereas 32% had increased it. The results showed a positive and robust association between changes in daily activity level and corresponding changes in psychological well-being. Specifically, individuals who had reduced their physical activity over the last year reported lower life satisfaction than before, and individuals who had increased their physical activity reported higher life satisfaction than before. The amount of complete physical inactivity (sitting) showed a similar pattern as the exercise data, meaning that individuals who reported increasing inactivity per day also reported a greater decline in life satisfaction. Additional analyses showed that the association between daily activity level and life satisfaction was somewhat stronger for men than for women, but there was no difference when comparing individual versus organized activities. The current study was based on a cross-sectional design, measuring self-reported change over time. Recent work from other research teams have used longitudinal data and experience-sampling in different settings, finding similar results. We conclude that there is good reason to recommend physical exercise as a coping strategy in difficult times.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.