Impact of COVID‐19 pandemic on sleep of undergraduate students: A systematic literature review

Abstract

The 2019 coronavirus pandemic forced the shift to distance education aggravating mental and physical vulnerabilities of undergraduate students, including sleep. This review aims to describe sleep problem rates and prevalence, sleep pattern disruption, sleep duration, sleep quality, insomnia symptoms, psychological and socioeconomic factors affecting sleep of undergraduates in 22 countries. A systematic search for articles published from 2020 to 2021 using 'COVID-19,' 'Coronavirus,' 'Pandemic,' 'Sleep,' 'Mental Health,' and 'Students' from PubMed, Scopus, and Cochrane yielded 2550 articles, where 72 were included. Selection criteria were:English full-text available articles, undergraduates and not postgraduates, reported sleep outcomes, and participants not from allied health courses. Risk of bias was assessed using various Joanna Briggs Institute checklists and outcomes were descriptively synthesized. Prevalence of sleep problems was notable, while longitudinal studies showed increased rates. There was significantly increased sleep duration, and sleep pattern disruption during lockdowns. Several psychological, behavioural, environmental, demographic, and socio-economic factors were found to be associated with sleep changes. These highlight the pandemic's impact on sleep of undergraduate students and reveal opportunities for institutions to intervene with policies and programs to promote the well-being of undergraduates. Limitations include recall bias and underrepresentation of other countries. This study is self-funded with registration number RGAO-2021-0071.

Determinants of Sleep Quality: A Cross-Sectional Study in University Students

“…While several studies demonstrated that pandemic-related lockdowns caused a substantial worsening of sleep quality [73][74][75], especially among female students, improved sleep quality was reported in another study on performing arts students [76]. Considering that pandemic-led restrictions were significant contributors to students sleep behavior, including bedtime schedules, sleep latency, and sleep duration [39], further studies are needed to investigate whether students sleep will return to normalcy or a new normal.…”

“…Results of these studies suggest that poor sleep quality is particularly common among university students, with between 30% and 70% of students classified as poor sleepers. More recently, it has been proposed that pandemic-led restrictions were significant contributors to students sleep behavior, including bedtime schedules, sleep latency, and sleep duration, which caused a substantial worsening of their sleep quality [39]. Since the current literature is widely limited to US [10,30] and Chinese students [31,32,35], the findings may not reflect sleep quality rates among university students attending higher education in Europe, which has several different characteristics relating to living arrangements, tuition, enrollment, and infrastructure [40].…”

“…To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to present data on sleep quality that was collected in the early stages of normalization after the COVID-19 pandemic-led restrictions among undergraduate and graduate students in Germany. In their systematic review, Valenzuela et al [39] examined the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on sleep among undergraduate students from different countries. While several studies demonstrated that pandemic-related lockdowns caused a substantial worsening of sleep quality [73][74][75], especially among female students, improved sleep quality was reported in another study on performing arts students [76].…”

Research trends in college students' sleep from 2012 to 2021: A bibliometric analysis

“…In recent years, different kinds of interventions aimed to solve sleep problems also have been studied further ( 13 , 14 ). Although some qualitative reviews summarized the characteristics of college students' sleep, bibliometric methods have not been used to comprehensively analyze the distribution and contribution of research in this field up to now ( 15 , 16 ). Hosseini et al and Darko et al pointed out that the qualitative review may have the potential bias of subjectivity ( 17 , 18 ).…”

Influence of Covid 19 Conditions on Sleep Alterations of Georgian and Foreign Students at the University of Georgia- A Cross Sectional Study

“…Generally, students usually have trouble falling asleep, which led to investigations regarding sleep patterns among international students [1]. It has been suggested that during the COVID-19 pandemic, sleep disorders would deepen among international students would be stronger [2,3]. The essence of sleep crosses over the affairs of every creature for the proper physiology of the body mechanisms [4].…”