Summary and implications of the studies
The results showed that because of COVID-19, people quarantined at home showed behavioral changes different from those before COVID-19. These changes would undoubtedly have an impact on physical and mental health. The COVID-19 pandemic will not be fully resolved in the short term. If the population is not properly guided, these behavioral changes will even have a negative impact on economic development and social stability. It is necessary to understand the behavioral factors of people in home quarantine to inform policy formulation during future short-term or long-term pandemic. Therefore, our study foresees this long-term impact, and the research results have guiding significance for the introduction of various industries and policies.
Among the study results, 74.92% of the participants showed varying degrees of anxiety and overall decreased sleep quality. In May 2020, the United Nations warned that COVID-19 was causing a mental health crisis and that countries were likely to face more and more severe mental health problems, and urged countries to include mental health in their COVID-19 response [28]. The World Health Organization recommended that countries develop national plans and allocate funds to shift mental health care from social institutions to community services. The National Health Commission of China issued psychological counseling guidelines for different groups of people in February 2020 after the outbreak of the pandemic, and guide is popularized online and offline in various forms, especially through new media [29]. In addition, studies have shown that anxiety can have a detrimental effect on sleep[30]. Depression, anxiety and the damage they cause should be monitored to predict the long-term impact of this crisis. This will help ensure that future policies consider the protection of human physical and mental health.
The results of the questionnaire showed that people spend less time working/studying, less time exercising and more time on entertainment because of stay-home. During the pandemic, telecommuting/online learning was the only option for many companies/schools. Online learning has proven to be an effective and dynamic way to deliver course content [31]. By 2017, more than 80% businesses in the United States had introduced telecommuting, and 30 million people telecommute from home, representing 16–19% of the working population in the United States. Telecommuting is on the rise in China and has broad space for development [32]. In light of study results, new office/learning models may emerge, and stakeholders will have to evaluate online work/learning from different perspectives. Similarly, the movement of people in public places needs to be monitored. Zhou et al. [33] propose that governments should collaborate with other private companies to use big data (such as mobile phone data, Google navigation data, Yelp login, geotagged tweets, etc.) to monitor public mobility patterns and social distance behaviors, so as to jointly provide information for policy making. In addition, the maximum amount of entertainment time for the population was 3–4 hours (41.87%) before the pandemic and 5–6 hours (47.63%) during the pandemic. In order to guide healthy entertainment activities and positive public response, more positive content should be reported online, and relevant policies should be introduced for various industries. Too much negative information on social media could affect people's mood, and people quarantined at home relied too much on electronic devices. A study in Thailand showed that social media is a major source of information about the pandemic and a potential source of anxiety during the pandemic [34]. Therefore, people should arrange their time they spend on social media reasonably and treat the pandemic information correctly. Finally, the finding of less time spent exercising had implications for health awareness in the general population. The pandemic has caused a heavy burden on national medical care and countries will vigorously promote fitness and health. Combined with relevant policy guidance, people's health awareness will gradually be improved. Some health clubs have started online training courses to help people in quarantine exercise at home so that relives their stress and spend time effectively to improve their health. Lemay China launched its online video teaching course at the end of 2019, including a shape-shaping course using home props. And the number of registrations to the course increased by 25000 during the Spring Festival in 2020, with cumulative views of more than 500000 [35]. During the pandemic, people were limited to go out and spent more time at home. Therefore, how to bring better convenience to people and remind people to find joy of life should be considered.
Enthusiastic, empathetic communication combined with positive expectations can significantly reduce anxiety [36]. The study results showed that the frequency of communication increased. It is possibly because people were feeling anxious and afraid with the pandemic, so there was an urgent need for communication to reduce anxiety. This requires great attention. The results particularly noted that the frequency of overlooking and opening windows have frequency increased, which indicated that people have realized the importance of landscaping and the natural environment. Due to home quarantine and community closed management, people's activity space is limited, and in such situation, good landscape greening can relieve mood and improve air quality. Several studies have explained how and why natural landscapes reduce stress and improve mood, from the perspectives of environmental psychology [37], horticultural therapy [38], and others. After the pandemic, there may be demand for commercial housing with sufficient replacement landscaping and beautiful residential environment. This is important information for the real-estate industry and the landscape design industry.
The pandemic has had a huge impact on the world. Interestingly, individual subjective behavior change has not received enough attention in public health management and prevention The behavioral factors of people affected by the pandemic should be constantly identified and monitored, and psychological services should be raised to the same important status as livelihood security and medical treatment. Emphasize the importance of policy intervention and guidance, and formulate targeted measures for the population to avoid the occurrence of security risks, which is related to the maintenance of social stability.
Limitations of our studies and further research
We recognize a number of limitations. The research was a cross-sectional study, and the data were collected only for a short period of time after the COVID-19 outbreak, reflecting only the association during the survey period. Future research should carry out longitudinal analyses to investigate other important behaviors that may have changed beyond the time limit, so as to fully reflect behavioral changes because of the pandemic. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has an impact on people around the world, but we studied only Chinese people. Due to different policies, people in other countries and regions may make different behavioral changes. Most importantly, while online questionnaires can lead to good response rates, the inability to collect data face-to-face means that we cannot collect other indicators. The questionnaire only reflects the subjective answers of the participants. In the future, we will combine the measurement of physiological indicators, such as heart rate, blood pressure, blood oxygen saturation, brain wave, skin electricity, etc., to comprehensively understand the physiological changes of behavior.