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A survey of healthcare workers in New York City during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic identified associations between poor sleep and anxiety, acute stress, and depressive symptoms.
Healthcare workers (HCWs) have been under immense pressure during the COVID-19 pandemic, often working long, stressful shifts and reporting anxiety and depressive symptoms. A recent study found that insomnia and poor sleep were associated with psychological distress in healthcare workers in New York City and that sleep could be a potential target of interventions to reduce their psychological distress.
These findings were recently published in the Journal of Affective Disorders .
Studies conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic have shown that healthcare workers are especially prone to psychological distress related to the pandemic, according to researchers. Previous research has also shown that acute distress related to the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in 2003 put healthcare workers at increased long-term risk of burnout, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Since short sleep duration and poor sleep have been linked to psychological symptoms and disorders, the present researchers sought to identify associations between insomnia and short sleep duration in healthcare workers in New York City when it was the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020.
Their study used data from the COVID-19 Healthcare Providers Study, a cross-sectional survey of physicians, residents or fellows, advanced practice providers (nurse practitioners or physician assistants), and registered nurses at a large medical center in New York City. York.
The survey included questions about providers and their roles, COVID-19-related stressors, and available wellness resources. Questions about sleep duration, insomnia symptoms, and psychological symptoms were also included.
A total of 813 participants were eligible for the final analysis, which assessed the prevalence of reported acute stress, depressive and anxiety symptoms, and their associations with insomnia and short sleep duration.
56% of participants were nurses and the overall cohort was 80.6% female and 59.0% white. More than a third of study participants were redirected from their typical duties to work in COVID-19-related environments.
On average, healthcare workers worked 4.1 shifts per week and 38.8% reported sleeping less than 6 hours per night. The average sleep duration was 5.8 hours and 72.8% of participants reported experiencing insomnia symptoms.
In the overall cohort, 57.9% experienced increased acute stress, 33.8% experienced elevated depressive symptoms, and 48.2% experienced increased anxiety symptoms.
Participants with insomnia symptoms were significantly more likely to have elevated depressive symptoms (41.9% vs. 12.2%), anxiety symptoms (57.8% vs. 22.6%), and acute stress symptoms (67 .4% vs. 32.6%) than those without insomnia symptoms.
Those who slept less than 6 hours per night also had elevated depressive symptoms (46.4% vs. 25.9%), anxiety symptoms (61.6% vs. 39.8%), and acute stress symptoms (67. 3% versus 52.0%) than those who slept more than 6 hours. hours per night.
These data suggest that sleep is an important aspect of mental health for healthcare workers in the pandemic.
"Although we previously reported on the prevalence of sleep disorders and psychological distress, the current study is novel and different from our previous study, as it provides one of the initial investigations into the magnitude of the association of insomnia symptoms and, separately, , the short duration of sleep. with the mental health of US healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic,” the authors wrote.
Although the study involved a large sample of healthcare workers and adds to a growing knowledge base on the association between sleep disturbance and psychological distress, one of its limitations is its cross-sectional nature, which limits the ability to make causal statements.
The prevalence of sleep disorders and their associated psychological symptoms in the study cohort before the pandemic is also unknown, although data from other studies show that rates of sleep disorders before the pandemic were significantly lower, according to the authors.
"Future research should explore longitudinal associations between sleep quality and psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic," they conclude, "to develop interventions that help stem the burden of psychological distress in healthcare workers." .
Reference
Díaz F, Cornelius T, Bramley S, et al. The association between sleep and psychological distress among New York City healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. J Affects Disorder. 2022;298(Pt A):618-624. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2021.10.033
