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Digital Marketing for Doctors: Tips to Improve Profitability

Digital Marketing for Doctors

Digital marketing for doctors may not take precedence when lives are at stake. But with the influx of internet users today, medical professionals will do well to leverage digital tactics in their overall marketing strategy.

Although doctors are abundant around us, it would be lax in assuming that patients are aware of them. What’s more, only 4.3% of doctors and physicians utilise digital marketing during self-promotion. The numbers speak for themselves.

Modern practices can expand their reach and establish trust with potential patients online when done right. This entails thorough research and proper planning so that campaigns will be optimised for maximum results. 

Fortunately, we’ve compiled a few tips to help you bring these strategies to fruition and, in turn, improve profitability.

1.Google Yourself

Google Yourself

Before breaking out the material, it won’t hurt to google yourself, see where you stand online or how your practice appears to consumers. Medical professionals may work heavily on referrals, but researching businesses online before making any commitments has become a norm.

Taking a look at your online presence from a third party’s perspective can help you build the right strategy more effectively.

2.Easy-to-Navigate Website

Website

The foundation of any online presence is, arguably, an easy-to-navigate website. Ensure that readers can find solicited answers quickly, whether it’s about medical conditions, booking an appointment or even informative blog posts.

Provide the exact address of your clinic as well as contact information. You can even include a live chat option for a more personal touch, as it will distinguish your website from the rest.

3.Engage Social Media

Engage Social Media

Medical professionals often underestimate the power of social media. However, the phrase ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ hasn’t rung more true.

Facebook is a hassle-free platform where doctors can share information, clinic updates, and industry-specific articles with patients. After all, 60% of users are likely to trust social media posts by doctors over other groups.

4.Produce Videos

videos

Film-making is probably the last thing on any doctor’s mind due to their hectic work schedules. Nonetheless, creating engaging and informative videos can help elevate your reputation as an experienced practitioner.

Attention spans aren’t what they used to be, and audiences are increasingly gravitating towards visual content. Surgeons can discuss their expertise and also bestow advice to audiences for prevalent issues.

5.Manage Both Business and Practitioner Listings

Business and Practitioner Listings

Ensuring that your Google listings are claimed and verified for business and practitioner listings will help patients find you easier. If you’re not managing them both well, your online presence may come across as inconsistent.

You don’t want patients to receive false information when trying to reach you.

6.Encourage Patient Reviews

patient reviews

Nothing sparks trust quite like positive feedback from others. People typically ask about certain doctors before visiting them. So, by collecting reviews and including them on your website, prospects can read them and feel assured in their decision.

In this age, digital marketing for doctors is a must. Keep in mind to use social media to educate and create a unique brand voice, subsequently creating demand for your service. 

We understand that your time is always stretched thin, which is why Mayflax aims to alleviate your load of dealing with multiple suppliers for your pharmaceutical needs. Find out more about our services and make the smart move for your practice!

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The Benefits of Digital Signage in Your Healthcare Practice

Waiting time

The Benefits of Digital Signage in Your Healthcare Practice

In health industry, some company has outdated office look like old-school and others company are keeping up with the trend and latest technologies…The customers now likely to go to modern vibes because they feel more excitement and comfortable… So, your company still need to upgrade it?

Yes! It’s time to upgrade to a new one but at a low-cost.

You can upgrade your company with a new appearance with the simple element which is digital signage.

But nowadays, a novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 has become a global pandemic with the uncontrollable spreading trend transmitted by ‘respiratory droplets’.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said: “there are 4.7 million new cases were reported in the past week, a decline of 6% from last week, and the number of new deaths has climbed to a record high at 93 000, a 9% increase from last week”. The increasing number of positive cases has also caused heavy pressure on hospitals and clinics.

Under the COVID-19 coronavirus condition, many hospitals now use internet technology, patient’s temperature detection, and self-service queuing kiosk to reduce the hospital clinic pressure from an online and offline perspectives.

Waiting time
Digital device

What Is Digital Signage?

Digital signage is a helpful tool for Healthcare Service. Digital signage is a media display screen that is placed in your healthcare facility to assist your staff.

The function of digital signage is to create an exciting experience for patients, increase wellness initiatives, and create a safer and more productive work environment.

It also helps healthcare staff to understand the value of using this technology to enhance the patient experience.

Thus, many clinics and hospitals began to use various forms of touchless solutions.

For example, KioWare and Asta Solution launched a solution that allowed customers to pull up a touchpad on their phones and interact with the kiosk that way. If you want to gain customers, you need to reach them on their terms.

Digital signage has many types includes different types some of the most common are:-

Here’s, we give these 5 ways health clinic or hospital which can benefit from digital signage technology.

How Does Digital Signage Benefit Patients?

Reduce Patient Anxiety

Anxiety
Anxiety

Some people have an uneasy feeling if they go to the clinic or hospital especially for kids. A clinic is one of the most anxious places to be.

However, to help reduce some of the patient’s uneasily feeling like stress, the clinic can do some move like improvements to their services.

Entertainment is one of healthcare practice in digital signage are use while waiting rooms and decrease perceived wait time. Thus, it also helps calm your patient’s mind.

Moreover, digital signage providing upbeat, entertaining, and attractive content helps reduce anxiety and restlessness before their appointment.

Waiting Times

Wait times
Wait times

Digital signage ability to display multiple forms of content, in fact, digital screens are not only informative but also more pleasant and enjoyable wait.

Healthcare facilities can entertain patients and visitors by providing engaging news, shows, relevant health information, or facility updates by use digital information boards.

When digital screens with engaging content are added to waiting rooms, it will reduce the waiting time for the patients.

Hence, the long waiting time becomes faster, for example, 30-minute can feel more like a 20-minute while waiting when patients are watching high-quality content that is targeted to their wants and needs.

Build a connection to staff

Teammate
Teammate

 

The patients like to know who they are working with before they go to the clinic for the health appointment.

Besides, digital signage will introduce your patients to your staff in an interesting way.

Thus, your team can create one introduction video on digital signage showing both the professional appreciation and personality of your staff.

It helps build a strong trusting relationship with your patients.

Easy for patient to search the building

Finding
Finding

 

 

If your clinic is located in a large building or hard to find, it can be harder for visitors to navigate. You can solve this problem by using interactive maps and directories near the entrance to your location, different from static maps such as interactive wayfinding tools.

This great tool will compact and personalizes information so that your visitors or patients only see the information they need, which helps them find their way more easily and faster.

Educate patients with shares important health-related information

Health information
Health information

 

 

 

The knowledge you can share our educational content such as wellness tips, treatment procedures, and medical advice that will make your patients become an informative person and healthier.

Your clinic can create short Informative videos for patients to watch while waiting to see the doctor or for their prescription.

However, this application is also widely used for Patient Education, “Prevention is better than Cure”.

References:
  1. https://blogs.spectrio.com/21-ways-digital-signage-benefits-healthcare
  2. https://screen.cloud/blog/digital-signage-in-healthcare

Healthcare practice , clinic, health, healthy, application, apps, digital, digital signage, digital health,  services, appointment, book,  maps, professional health, anxiety, anxious, mind, pleasant, info, information, wellness tips, education, mobile device, patient, connection, team, relationship, valuable times, waiting time.

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Raihan Ridzuan

Raihan Ridzuan ,  Bachelor of Science (Hons) Pharmacology, is  Customer Relationship Customer of Mayflax , one of the nation’s leading healthcare and marketing company.

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5 Tips on Reducing Patient Wait Times In Your Clinic

Photo of clinic

5 Tips on
Reducing
Patient Wait Times
in Your Clinic

Photo of an empty clinic
Martha Dominguez de Gouveia

Patients easily get frustrated if they waiting for a long time to see their medical practitioner. Waiting too long in businesses may lead to an unhealthy work environment and bad experiences among patients.

Furthermore, patient wait times can impact on clinic because they have a powerful effect on overall patient satisfaction.

Meanwhile, about 5,000 patients and 97% say they are getting frustrated by having to wait in waiting rooms recently surveyed by the company Software Advice.

As well as, 8% of patients will be less frustrated if they know how long the wait would be.

Said pediatrician Justin Smith, M.D., director of primary care innovations at Cook Children’s in Fort Worth, Texas.

“As doctors, we just need to value everyone’s time,” and “Sometimes we can get in the habit of thinking our time is more important than anyone else’s, and that’s unfair and unreasonable.”

Reducing Wait Times

Fortunately, there are many efficient ways for reducing patient wait times. We need to have good strategies to solve this problem, here are the main 5 tips we found to reduce waiting time in clinics practices.

1. Collect patient information before their scheduled appointment.

Collect patient info it may seem convenient at the time of the visit. I believe preventing delays at check-in can reduce patient wait times.

Does your office staff gather insurance information and patient history when they schedule an appointment? Are patients asked to complete the necessary forms before arrival?

Prepping paperwork collection will help patients be ready for tomorrow’s appointment as soon as they arrive at the office.

Moreover, through your website or via an online patient portal, they can complete the paperwork, and time spent in a waiting room at the clinic will reduce.

2. Create and stick to a policy for no-shows and late arrivals.

The healthcare company can create a policy for dealing with patients who do not show up or arrive late for their appointments such as QueueMed,  and BookDoc.

This application will automated reminders to remind the patients of their appointment via messenger and email.

The clinic can  set a time limit for late arrivals if a patient late more than 30 minutes or no-shows and need to reschedule back. Hence, late fees will be charged for cancellation or no show-up on-time. 

These policies can emphasize that you’re doing this because you value their time as much as they do.

3. Use a mobile queue solution

Implementing a mobile queue tool are a great way to keep wait times down.

Thus, QueueMed Solutions gives the patient to arrange their wait times and at the same time, it can help you to manage patient flow.

With the current situation, this is especially important during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic due to the need to reduce the risk of transmission and observe social distancing measures.

QueueMed Solutions

Over 50,000 patients, the QueueMed Solutions have helped to improve their clinic visit experience and save their waiting times. Moreover, QueueMed provides more efficient ways to book the appointment via mobile device.

Furthermore, not only just QueueMed, there are more queue apps like a BookDoc which provides a mobile queue solution and able to search for doctors’ available time slots.

4. Divide front-desk duties

Segregate each staff to a specific job, such as phones or greetings. A smooth-running front-desk is important to successful daily operations in your clinic.

If the front-desk staff is stretched thin and not solid, some things may not be done or done properly may risk their job dissatisfaction, and can get a negative effect on how they interact with patients.

How can that problem be avoided? Besides, create an expert in charge of an area front-desk where the activities will run smoothly, there is a much better chance they will be happy and productive.

5. Using patient pre-registration

Have a clear understanding of your current registration process so that you can incorporate pre-registration into your training workflow.

As a result, with this approach, all registrations are incorporated directly into the registration software without the need for paper forms.

Pre-registration can simplify the process by collecting patient information. Besides, work as a team to determine the information you need to gather from patients during pre-registration.

Thus, you can use BookDoc App with mobile devices and internet access to book an appointment at any time from wherever you are, even when clinics are closed. The system is available 24 hours. The doctors’ portal allows you to conveniently and easily access patient information.

Hence, pre-registration can be done on the phone ahead of the appointment, or on the day of the appointment in person.

In the healthcare sector like clinics, waiting time can being a huge factor in determining patient satisfaction scores which result in repeat business and referrals.

While it is impossible to completely eliminate patient waiting times, its reduction remains possible.

Remember, a happy patient can boost their emotion to become a healthy person!

References:
  1. https://www.mobius.md/blog/2019/08/10-ways-to-reduce-patient-wait-time/
  2. https://blog.evisit.com/virtual-care-blog/reduce-patient-wait-times

Health, healthy person, application, apps, appointment, book, booking, queue, mobile queue, clinic, digital health,  professional health, info, information, mobile device, patient, profit, profitable, tips, waiting time, policy.

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Raihan Ridzuan

Raihan Ridzuan ,  Bachelor of Science (Hons) Pharmacology, is  Customer Relationship Executive of Mayflax , one of the nation’s leading healthcare and marketing company.

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How to Increase Your Clinic’s Profit: 5 Uncommon Tips

Basic marketing principles and strategies are needed to create awareness about your clinic, which would increase your clinic’s profit. 

Here are 5 tips, aiming at increasing your clinic’s profitability in a not so common way:

1. Customer Care

Impressions of your patient towards the clinic is without a doubt the most important and it usually begins with your reception desk.

Don’t make them wait for too long! Instead, ensure that the lobby is supplied with drinking water facility, reading material, television and soothing interiors.

By exhibiting a warm, empathetic and helpful behavior from your staff and also good medical prowess by you, it may be a recommendable patient experience! The patient will voluntarily share this with friends and family.

2. Good IT Usage

Waiting time could be reduced at your clinic by using a good IT solution.

Not only will it be able to schedule your appointments and help you accommodate walk-ins in, but it can also manage missed/did not turn up appointments.

3. Creating a Network with Allied Services Professionals

Medical care to patients involves many others including Pharmacists, Physiotherapists, Counselors, Pathologists and many others.

A great network with other medical care professionals can ensure good support with references.

4. A Point of Offer

In your marketing campaigns, offer something unique that would then create consumers. Thus, increasing you clinic’s profit.

5. Automate and Have Central Control 

Fully equip yourself with information on how things are working at every corner of your clinic.

Having reports are the best form of control possible without being physically present at all times, everywhere.

Get an automation solution as per the requirements of your clinic and train yourself to understand what the numbers spell out. 

Having said that, we at Mayflax are happy to help you in terms of medication supply so you can focus more on you clinic’s marketing. Click here to learn more!

References

  1. https://www.practicebuilders.com
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Easy ways to attract more patients to your clinic

Cr. Foto Garage AG

Source from practicebuilders.com

One of the things essential for the success of any business and medical practice is having a healthcare marketing. 30 to 50 new patients are needed every month for a medical practice to grow. Furthermore, a practice must offer competitive services at reasonable pricing.

It is important to grow your practice and add new patients; here are some proven, possible ways to help increase the possible new clients.

  1. Identifying your target audience. Observe the office records and average age, gender, profession and location of your existing patients. This would help you find the best marketing techniques to promote your clinic and attract new patients.
  2. Training the team. It is important to have a great first impression so train your staff with things that they should know, with specific details such as pricing, equipment used during procedures, what to expect during a consult, etc.
  3. Patient follow-up. One of the easiest and cost-effective ways to grow your practice is to retain existing patients and nurture relationships with them so that it would increase referrals.
  4. Having a mobile-responsive website. Having a responsive website that works equally well on mobile devices is critical for the growth of your practice. The website is responsible for educating your potential patients so they can make an informed decision and call the clinic for an appointment. 
  5. Blogging. This would increase your SEO and adds fresh content to your site. Provide wellness tips, announce local events and share updates with consistent posting that are relevant and original so that you could keep your patients informed.
  6. Encourage online reviews. Have your patients to share their feedback in an online review maybe by sending a follow-up email thanking your patients for their visit and encouraging them to review you online.
  7. Being active in social media. Entire social circle sees when your current patients “like” or “share” your content on social media and this could direct user traffic to your page and may help generate leads.
  8. Be responsive. With an increase number of patients, you have to make sure that you have enough staff to expand your existing services and if possible, add new services to meet the needs of new patients. You can increase the number of patients and grow your practice by meeting local demands in a strategic and timely manner. 
  9. Having quality service. You must be well equipped with manners and the look and the feel of your clinic are extremely important, so that the patients would be satisfied with you and your staff’s attitude and services.
  10. Having real pictures of your staff posted. Real-life images of your team and office will display the comfort of your clinic and personality to your practice website instead of using stock and generic photos.

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No adverse CV outcomes and excess risks of death from Febuxostat

Cr. Halacious

Source from MIMS.com

According to the results of a meta-analysis, the use of febuxostat does not appear to come with an increased hazard of mortality or adverse cardiovascular (CV) outcomes, for the treatment of patients with gout and hyperuricemia.

Data from 15 randomized controlled trials were collected by researchers and contributed to a total of 16,070 participants. The proportion of patients with hypertension varied between 27.7 percent and 100.0 percent, while those with diabetes ranged from 6.9 percent to 100.0 percent.

A median follow-up of 6.4 months were used across the trials, and the use of febuxostat vs control (allopurinol or placebo) did not result in a significant increase in the risk of CV mortality and all-cause mortality.

The same was true for adverse CV outcomes, as follows: major adverse CV events (risk difference [RD] 1.40 percent), myocardial infarction (RD, -0.06 percent), stroke (RD, 0.10 percent), or new-onset hypertension (RD, 1.58 percent).

Among patients with existing CV disease, the findings were consistent and the test (Egger’s regression test) did not detect significant publication bias.

The evidence were limited by the presence of low to moderate certainty, the researchers said. Recommendations of evaluating CV events and mortality as an outcome were stated by the researchers, as well as defining major adverse CV events, and comparing the outcomes among different doses of febuxostat over a longer follow-up duration in future trials.

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Differences between anxiety attacks and panic attacks

Cr. Victor Rodvang

Source from my.clevelandclinic.org

People have been using the terms “anxiety attack” and “panic attack” correspondingly, when in fact, they are two slightly different medical conditions.

A breakdown:

Anxiety is typical and although it is unpleasant, it helps motivate and protect individuals from threats.

Anxiety disorders comes in many forms and people usually respond to non-threatening things with outsized fear and dread.

Anxiety attacks is just another term for a panic attack.

Panic attacks occurs without warning and are intense attacks of fear and anxiety. It is usually harmless and last for about 15 to 20 minutes.

Panic disorder occurs when an individual has repeated panic attacks and it is also a type of anxiety disorder.

Panic attack symptoms

  • A feeling that what is happening around them is not real
  • Chest pain or discomfort
  • Chills or overheating
  • Dizziness
  • Fear of perhaps that they are dying or going crazy
  • Feeling that they might be choking
  • Increased heart rate
  • Nausea
  • Numbness
  • Sweating
  • Trembling or shaking

How to deal with panic attacks

  1. Labeling it. When panic attack happens, individual who are experiencing it often thinks that they are having a heart attack or losing their mind. It is advised to assure themselves that what is happening to them won’t kill them and that it will end.
  2. Keeping track. Note the attacks and when and where they happened, how long the duration was and things that might have triggered it.
  3. Breathe. Numerous claims from people of various backgrounds said that deep breathing exercises helps. It turns down the body’s panic response, helping the breath and heart rate to return back to normal.
  4. Distract the mind from focusing about the panic attacks. Do other things that helps. For example, smell something pleasant or watching a funny TV show.
  5. Getting help. Mental health professionals can help by using a Jedi mind trick, known as cognitive restructuring.

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Easy treatment for headaches

Cr. Adrian Swancar

Source from Healthline.com

Headache is defined as a pain arising from the head or upper neck of the body. The pain originates from the tissues and structures that surround the skull or the brain because the brain itself has no nerves that give rise to the sensation of pain (pain fibers). Several types of headaches exist, with tension headaches being the most common. Cluster headaches are painful and happen in groups or “clusters,” while migraines are a moderate-to-severe type of headache.

Keeping hydrate : The body need certain amount of fluid for it to properly function and by drinking too little, it may lead you to develop a headache. Researchers have found that the common cause of migraines and tension headaches mostly come from chronic dehydration. This can be relieved by drinking enough water which shown to relieve symptoms in dehydrated individuals within 30 minutes to three hours –  depending on their state.

Cr. LuAnn Hunt

Cr. Annie Spratt

Taking magnesium : A study suggests that treatment with 600mg of oral magnesium citrate per day helps in reducing the frequency and severity of migraine headaches. Headaches could be cured with prescribed medicines and can be prevented with consuming food that have high content of magnesium such as pumpkin seed, broccoli and certain amount of beans.

Limiting alcohol intake : Evidence shown that alcohol can trigger migraines in about one-third of individuals who experience frequent headaches. It also cause tension and cluster headaches in many people. Alcohol is a vasodilator, which widens blood vessels and allows more flow of the blood which may cause headaches in some people. The body could lose fluids and electrolytes from frequent urination as alcohol also acts as a diuretic which can cause or worsen headaches.

Cr. Giovanna Gomes

Cr. Gregory Pappas

Getting enough sleep : Sleeping less than you required can be detrimental to your health and may even cause headaches in some people. It is found that people who has sleep deprivation had more frequent and severe headaches but getting too much sleep has also been shown to trigger headaches. It is advised to have a minimum of 6 hours sleep a day, depending on the individual.

Practice yoga : One of the ways to relieve stress and improve your overall quality of life would be relaxing with yoga. A study was conducted and it showed that the effects of yoga therapy on 60 people with chronic migraines were reduced more than those who received conventional care alone.

Cr. Kiki Vega

Cr. Peter Secan

Having caffeinated liquid : Drinking beverages with caffeine such as tea or coffee may provide relief for a headache. It improves mood, increases alertness and constricts blood vessels. It also helps increase the effectiveness of common medications like acetaminophen and ibuprofen which are used to treat headaches with mindful caffeine intake.

Exercise : Increasing your activity level is said  to be one of the simplest ways in reducing headaches. A study which involved 91 people in 40 minutes of indoor cycling, three times a week was effective in reducing headache frequency than practicing relaxation techniques.

Cr. Jenny Hill

Cr. Dominik Martin

Sip some ginger tea : Ginger root has many beneficial compounds, including antioxidants and anti-inflammatory substances and they also helps reducing nausea and vomiting, which usually are the common symptoms associated with severe headaches.

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Women with recurrent pregnancy loss could reduce their stress with emotion-focused strategies

Cr. Matteo Di iorio

Source from MIMS.com

According to the data presented at ESHRE 2020, perceived stress in women who had recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL) could be reduced by meditation and mindfulness interventions.

Karen Kirchheiner from Hdidovre Hospital in Denmark, stated that studies have shown perceived stress and moderate-to-severe depression are more prevalent in women with RPL than other women trying to conceive.

“A 7-week meditation and mindfulness programme significantly reduced perceived stress [vs] a standard supportive care programme for women with RPL,” she said.

The researchers in the study randomized 76 women, 1:1 to receive supportive care alone or with a 7-week meditation and mindfulness programme facilitated by an authorized instructor. Daily guided audio of meditation for 10-20 minutes were also instructed for the women in the intervention arm while women in the control arm were instructed against meditation; 63 women completed the study.

Mean perceived stress significantly dropped from baseline in both the intervention and the control arms at 7 weeks with intervention outweighed the control protocol in terms of perceived stress reduction for between-group comparison.

The between-group difference was not significant as the perceived stress levels remained low in both intervention and control arms at 12 months vs baseline.

Women in the intervention arm had a significant reduction in personal stress from baseline, which were based on COMPI-FPSS scores at week 7. No significant differences were seen in the other two domains despite the reduced scores.

Consistent numerical reductions were seen across all COMPI-FPSS domains with the intervention protocol at 12 months, 9.2 to 8.7 points, and 7.9 to 7.6 points with only the social domain score reduction was statistically significant.

At week 7, depression was reported at baseline, dropping to none for two women in the intervention and at 12 months, only one had depression. However, these reductions did not equate to statistical significance.

Kirchheiner stated that there are no any significant decrease in depression in all three timelines and underlined that the study was not powered to detect differences in Major Depression Index (MDI).

“[Nevertheless, our studies suggest that] guided self-administered meditations could be a useful tool in the care for women experiencing RPL …. We now have a documented tool to reduce perceived stress. The question now is how to implement this in our clinical practice,” she concluded.

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Facing the pandemic with a mental health : Students are struggling

Cr. Sam Balye

Source from WebMD.com

College life could be both stressful and demanding and from that, anxiety, depression and inactive lifestyles are actually common among students. Now with the pandemic of COVID-19 happening worldwide, a new study might have found that the mental-health issues could be escalated and turn for the worst.

Researchers at Dartmouth College determined that the coronavirus pandemic had an immediate impact on the mental health of this particular undergraduate group of 200 students, using a mix of smartphone data and online surveys.

The study involved students who were participating in a research program tracking mental health at the New Hampshire university with Spikes of depression and anxiety were reported at the beginning of the pandemic in early March, just as the school pushed students to leave campus and begin remote learning all by their selves.

The study found out that the students’ overall anxiety and depression levels remained consistently high than in previous years, even if their self-reported anxiety and depression lessened slightly later on in the semester.

Jeremy Huckins, a lecturer at Dartmouth stated that there is a large-scale shift in mental health and behaviour compared to the observed baseline established for the group over previous years.

In addition, the students reported around spring break period in mid-March that their day-to-day lives were dramatically more sedentary than pervious terms.

Huckins suspected that spring break 2020 was stressful and confining for the students in the study and it might be responsible for a large number of college students across the country even though it is usually a period of decreased stress and increased physical activity.

A smartphone app developed at Dartmouth was used by the researchers to calculate sedentary time. It collected information such as number of phone unlocks, phone usage duration and sleep duration from the student volunteers.

Through the app, data on depression and anxiety were also collected using weekly, self-reported questionnaires. The decrease in activity among these students may have been related to lockdown orders implemented at the time.

Huckins also said that when social distancing was recommended by local governments, students were more sedentary and visited fewer locations on any given day. “The impact of COVID-19 extends beyond the virus and its direct impacts. An unresolved question is if mental health and physical activity will continue to degrade over time, or if we will see a recovery, and how long that recovery will take”.

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