Prevalence, Risk Factors, and Clinical Correlates of Insomnia in China College Student During the COVID-19

Abstract

Objective: The 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) broke out in Hubei Province and spread rapidly to the whole country, causing huge public health problems. College students are a special group, and there is no survey on insomnia among college students. The purpose of this study was to investigate the incidence and related factors of insomnia in college students during the period of COVID-19.Method: A total of 1,086 college students conducted a cross-sectional study through the questionnaire star platform. The survey time was from February 15 to February 22, 2020. The collected information included demographic informatics and mental health scale, Athens Insomnia Scale (AIS) to assess sleep quality, Self-Reporting Questionnaire-20 (SRQ-20) to assess general psychological symptoms, Chinese perceived stress scale (CPSS) to assess stress. We used logistic regression to analyze the correlation between related factors and insomnia symptoms.Results: The prevalence of insomnia, general psychological symptoms and stress were 16.67, 5.8, and 40.70%, respectively. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that gender (OR = 1.55, p = 0.044, 95% CI = 1.00–2.41), general psychological symptoms (OR = 1.49, p < 0.01, 95% CI = 1.40–1.60) and living in an isolation unit (OR = 2.21, p = 0.014, 95% CI = 1.17–4.16) were risk factors for insomnia of college students.Conclusion: Our results show that the insomnia is very common among college students during the outbreak of covid-19, and the related factors include gender, general psychological symptoms and isolation environment. It is necessary to intervene the insomnia of college students and warrants attention for mental well-being of college students.

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

“…Several factors have been found to be associated with increased insomnia rates, including being female, being a college student, having pre‐existing mental health conditions, perceiving COVID‐19 as unpreventable and incurable, increased levels of depression, anxiety, perceived stress, discrimination, shame, stigma, disrupted access to mental health services, lower psychological resilience, decreased independent decision‐making, living in an isolation unit, living in a rural area, and having physical health conditions (Alyoubi et al., 2021; Benham, 2020; Li, Zheng et al., 2020; Totskiy et al., 2021; Yu et al., 2021; Zhou et al., 2020). In contrast, a separate study reports that gender was not associated with the presence of insomnia symptoms (Zhou et al., 2020).…”

Effectiveness of Digital Cognitive Behavior Therapy for the Treatment of Insomnia: Spillover Effects of dCBT

“…Second, negative emotions brought about by the pandemic affected students’ sleep quality. During the pandemic, students’ worries about the future caused more anxiety, depression, and other troubling emotions [ 65 ]. Pandemics can significantly increase the general public’s depression, anxiety, and stress levels [ 66 ].…”

“…This was not conducive to disease prevention and control, causing more anxiety, irritability, and other negative emotions. College students were more likely to get all kinds of negative news from their frequent use of mobile phones [ 65 , 67 ]. Third, switching to the online mode increased working people’s burden because people need to learn and adapt to online office software and processes [ 68 ], and added to students’ academic burden.…”

Depression, anxiety, and insomnia among Peruvian university students during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…In our research, depression, anxiety, and insomnia were significantly associated with keeping an eye on social networks; however, only anxiety had a stronger association (ORa=1.43, 95%CI: 1.06 to 1.94). Regarding insomnia, there is a female predisposition with a risk ratio of 1.41 (95% CI: 1.28 to 1.55) for women compared to men, the trend of female predisposition is constant and progressive throughout age (32) . In the context of COVID-19, in an international collaborative study in 13 countries and four continents, clinical symptoms were reported in 36.7% (95%CI: 36.0 to 37.4) of respondents; rates of insomnia and insomnia disorder were higher in women and in younger age groups (5) .…”