Insomnia and job stressors among healthcare workers who served COVID-19 patients in Bangladesh

Abstract

Background The global outbreak of COVID-19 has created unprecedented havoc among health care workers, resulting in significant psychological strains like insomnia. This study aimed to analyze insomnia prevalence and job stressors among Bangladeshi health care workers in COVID-19 units. Methodology We conducted this cross-sectional study to assess insomnia severity from January to March 2021 among 454 health care workers working in multiple hospitals in Dhaka city with active COVID-dedicated units. We selected 25 hospitals conveniently. We used a structured questionnaire for face-to-face interviews containing sociodemographic variables and job stressors. The severity of insomnia was measured by the Insomnia Severity Scale (ISS). The scale has seven items to evaluate the rate of insomnia, which was categorized as the absence of Insomnia (0–7); sub-threshold Insomnia (8–14); moderate clinical Insomnia (15–21); and severe clinical Insomnia (22–28). To identify clinical insomnia, a cut-off value of 15 was decided primarily. A cut-off score of 15 was initially proposed for identifying clinical insomnia. We performed a chi-square test and adjusted logistic regression to explore the association of different independent variables with clinically significant insomnia using the software SPSS version 25.0. Results 61.5% of our study participants were females. 44.9% were doctors, 33.9% were nurses, and 21.1% were other health care workers. Insomnia was more dominant among doctors and nurses (16.2% and 13.6%, respectively) than others (4.2%). We found clinically significant insomnia was associated with several job stressors (p < 0.05). In binary logistic regression, having sick leave (OR = 0.248, 95% CI = 0.116, 0.532) and being entitled to risk allowance (OR = 0.367, 95% CI = 0.124.1.081) showed lower odds of developing Insomnia. Previously diagnosed with COVID-19-positive health care workers had an OR of 2.596 (95% CI = 1.248, 5.399), pointing at negative experiences influencing insomnia. In addition, we observed that any training on risk and hazard increased the chances of suffering from Insomnia (OR = 1.923, 95% CI = 0.934, 3.958). Conclusion It is evident from the findings that the volatile existence and ambiguity of COVID-19 have induced significant adverse psychological effects and subsequently directed our HCWs toward disturbed sleep and insomnia. The study recommends the imperativeness to formulate and implement collaborative interventions to help HCWs cope with this crisis and mitigate the mental stresses they experience during the pandemic.

Psycho-Social impact of Covid-2019 on Work-Life Balance of Health Care Workers in India:

“…Government intervention has a more positive impact on NMT workers. Previous studies also observed doctors and nurses to be the worst sufferers of sleep disorders among all categories of HCWs (Rahman et al, 2023).…”

“…Voluminous studies have revealed the presence of stress, anxiety, insomnia and fatigue during COVID-2019 (Lee et al, 2020;Chew et al, 2020 ;Roy et al, 2020). A few studies have measured insomnia/sleep quality as a measure of stress (Rahman et al, 2023;Xiao et al, 2020) and suggested that job-related stresses and uncertainty during COVID-19 pandemic has affected the mental health and sleep pattern of HCWs. Keeping in view the consequences of psychological stress on health and wellbeing of HCWs, it is essential to measure this construct, which has been extensively taken up in many studies.…”

Exploring Psychological and Socio-Economic Impact of Covid 2019 on Healthcare Workers in India: Evidence from Delhi-NCR Hospitals

“…The existing literature on Covid-2019 reveals that substantial proportion of HCWs suffered from mental health issues ranging from psychological distress, burnout, anxiety disorders, depression and other issues such as poorly perceived self-health, occupational stress, troubled sleep and insomnia, lack of interpersonal communication and social support, role conflict and lack of control over their lives especially during the period of quarantine 12,[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] . Many biological (mood disorder and age), psychological (avoidant personality traits, facing conflict between the familial and professional roles and escaping coping mechanism), and socio-environmental factors (insufficient communication and unsatisfactory information, high risk of exposure to infection to family members, social distancing leading to lack of emotional support, inadequate supply of personal protective equipment) that contributed to the mental health problems of the HCWs have been underlined by multiple studies 8,15,[28][29][30][31][32][33] .…”