Keeps me awake at night: The potential of the COVID-19 pandemic to affect sleep quality among sexual minority men in the U.S.A.

Abstract

Sleep health, a crucial component and predictor of physical and mental health, has likely been adversely impacted by the stress and disruption wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic. This brief report sought to assess self-reported sleep quality among sexual minority men across the United States in the early months of the pandemic. In a cross-sectional online survey of a racially diverse sample of 477 sexual minority men (mean age ϭ 41.2 years; range ϭ 18 -75 years) recruited from popular geosocial networking apps in early May 2020, participants reported on their recent experiences regarding sleep and mental health (anxiety, depression, and pessimistic repetitive future thinking). Almost 75% endorsed some level of restless sleep in the past week, 203 (42.6%) reported worse-than-usual sleep quality since the pandemic, and 77 (16.1%) reported sleeping longer than usual but not feeling better rested. Furthermore, of the 280 reporting worse-than-usual sleep or feeling not rested, almost 85% reported that worry about the pandemic had been contributing to their troubles with falling or staying asleep. Rates of worsened sleep were highest among those whose financial situation had been adversely affected and those not in full-time employment, whereas restless sleep was highest among those in the Northeast region of the United States, which, during the study's time frame of late April and early May 2020, was the most severely affected by the pandemic. Greater emotional distress was associated with each sleep variable. Addressing and improving sleep health is critical to overall health and requires particular attention during the COVID-19 pandemic. Public Significance StatementThis study documents the detrimental impact that the COVID-19 pandemic may have exerted on self-reported sleep health in a sample of sexual minority men in the United States. More than half of participants reported experiencing decreased sleep quality or not feeling rested in the early months of the pandemic, and this was even more prevalent among those whose financial situation had recently worsened and/or who were not in full-time employment. Sleep disturbance was associated with greater emotional distress, further highlighting for health care providers the importance of attending to, and improving, sleep health in the community.

Sexual health (excluding reproductive health, intimate partner violence and gender-based violence) and COVID-19: a scoping review

“…Ten studies detailed SGM. [86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94] Most reported an increase in anxiety or depression during the pandemic. 86-92 94 A crosssectional observational quantitative study found an increase in experiences of mental distress, anxiety or depression among American SGM college students.…”

Partners’ Consensus About Joint Effort and COVID-19 Prevention Among Sexual Minority Men

“…SMM have been found to experience elevated levels of COVID-19-related stress. Among a sample of SMM, pandemic-related worry has been linked to sleep disturbance (Millar et al, 2020 ). SMM have reported challenges with meeting basic resource needs during the pandemic, such as purchasing food and paying rent due to loss of employment and limited access to sexual healthcare (i.e., HIV and STI testing, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) services, and HIV treatments; Banerjee & Nair, 2020 ; Brennan et al, 2020 ; Sanchez et al, 2020 ).…”

Sexual minority orientation is associated with greater psychological impact due to the COVID-19 crisis—evidence from a longitudinal cohort study of young Swiss men

“…Thus, the COVID-19 crisis had a greater psychological impact on sexual minority men, as had been hypothesised early on in the crisis [4,6]. Because earlier research had reported the high impact of the COVID-19 crisis on sexual minority men [24][25][26][27], but also on the general population [28], it was therefore important to test whether sexual minority men were more affected than heterosexual men. To the best of our knowledge, only three studies, based on online convenience samples from the United States of America [7,29,30], had reported a higher psychological impact of the COVID-19 crisis among sexual minorities compared to heterosexual people.…”

“…Their existing higher addictive behaviours and substance use [9] may also be further exacerbated as a coping mechanism for COVID-19's psychological impact. Recent research has indicated that members of sexual minority groups have suffered a high psychological impact from the crisis [24][25][26][27], but these studies were done in samples of sexual minority people only and, therefore, that impact cannot be compared with the psychological impact suffered by the heterosexual people also affected by the crisis [28]. Only three studies with online recruited convenience samples from the United States of America comparing sexual minorities and heterosexual persons found that the psychological impacts among members of sexual minorities were greater [7,29,30].…”