Abstract

Objective: To determine the effect of COVID-19 lockdown on the health-related Quality of life in undergraduate students taking online classes from different private institutions.
Methodology: It was a cross-sectional study involving 211participants. Sample size was calculated by “EpiTool” with 95% confidence level. They were selected through convenient sampling technique. RAND health-related quality of life (QoL) SF-36 form was used to collect data. The questionnaires included demographics details and SF-36 questions divided into eight domains.
Results: Average age group was 21-23 years. The mean values of eight SF36 domains were calculated separately and the range for male was 36.23-74.21 points while for females were 29.19-65.62. The paired sample t-test showed p>0.005 in all domains of SF-36 except pain, Energy/Fatigue, and General health QoL. A total of 175 respondents out of 211 mentioned that they had better health now as compared to a year ago.
Conclusion: There was a marked decrease in the quality of life of the undergraduate students taking online classes in private Universities of Lahore. Other than Social functioning domain of SF36 both the gender was equally affected by the COVID-19 lockdown in term of QoL which showed no significant gender dependent difference.

Key words: Covid-19, quality of life, online education.