The pandemic caused by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 virus) has infected more than 646 million people and caused more than 6.6 million deaths worldwide (December/2022). It is surprising that a virus that affects airways can trigger neurological manifestations. The aim of this study was to create and apply specific questionnaires/evaluations for post-COVID-19 patients to profile any neurofunctional sequelae.

Epidemiological and psychomotor aspects as well as the intensity of cognitive, memory, attention, and concentration impairment were assessed. A total of 184 subjects post-COVID-19 and a control group (n = 30) were evaluated.

The most prevalent blood types in the COVID-19 group were the same as those from control group and in Brazilian population (no influence). Loss of smell/taste and headache were the most common reported symptoms. Talking about psychomotor and neurofunctional aspects, COVID-19 induced marked impairments in the tests: fine motor development (diadochokinesis, puppets, fan, and knead paper); balance (immobility, static balance, feet in line, and persistence); episodic memory after distractors; verbal fluency; and clock, compared to the control group data. There was also marked increase of synkinesis. Therefore, COVID-19 induced impairments in psychomotor assessments and in different cognitive aspects of the Mini-Mental State Examination. These results are more surprising considering that most participants did not report pre-existing disease and did not require hospitalisation.

COVID-19 induced psychomotor, neurofunctional, and memory impairments, including in young and healthy subjects. The present study revealed neurological impairments, which should be considered in the development of rehabilitation protocols for patients affected by COVID-19.

During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, undergraduate students were exposed to symptoms of psychological suffering during remote classes. Therefore, it is important to investigate the factors that may be generated and be related to such outcomes.

To investigate the association between fear of COVID-19, depression, anxiety, and related factors in undergraduate students during remote classes.

This cross-sectional study included 218 undergraduate students (60.6% women and 39.4% men). Students answered a self-administered online questionnaire designed to gather personal information, pandemic exposure, physical activity level, fear of COVID-19 using the ‘Fear of COVID-19 Scale’, symptoms of depression using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9, and anxiety using General Anxiety Disorder-7.

Undergraduate students had a high prevalence of depression and anxiety (83.0% and 76.1%, respectively) but a low prevalence of fear of COVID-19 (28.9%) during remote classes. Multivariate analysis revealed that women who reported health status as neither good nor bad and who had lost a family member from COVID-19 had the highest levels of fear. For depression and anxiety, the main related factors found were female gender, bad health status, insufficiently active, and complete adherence to the restriction measures.

These findings may be used to develop actions to manage symptoms of anxiety and depression among students, with interventions through physical activity programmes to improve mental health.