The Impact of Anxiety and Sleep Disturbances During COVID-19 Pandemic on Systolic and Diastolic Blood Pressures in a Rural Community

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic, which has occurred since last year, has impacted all aspects of life, including health, in particular the condition of blood pressure. Many factors affect blood pressure during this pandemic, and hypertension is caused by many conditions. The pandemic has also affected the patterns and life cycles of the society. Changes in the economy and in daily life can increase blood pressure and hypertension as they may cause psychosocial or emotional stress, changes in sleep patterns, and diurnal cycles. This study aims to investigate how anxiety levels and sleep disturbances affect blood pressure. This research is a cross-sectional study. The research method used in this research is descriptive to determine the effect of stress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on the blood pressure of the rural residents. Statistical analysis used is descriptive analysis and linear regression test. The difference seems to be significant when p < 0.05. This research has obtained ethics approval from the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Medicine, Islamic University of Indonesia.A total of 38 respondents participated in this study, 35 females and 3 males (ages 28-67). The results of the linear regression test showed that the level of anxiety and sleep disturbances indicated by the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HARS) score and the Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI) score did not seem to statistically have a significant contribution to systolic (p 0.166) and diastolic (p 0.166) blood pressure. The results of R2 (R Square) of systolic and diastolic in this study were 0.097 and 0.027 respectively, which showed that the influence of anxiety and sleep disturbances contributed to systolic by 9.7% and diastolic 2.7%. Meanwhile, the coefficient of impact when examined separately on anxiety scores and sleep disturbance scores on systolic and diastolic blood pressures was 0.12, p 0.103; −0.016, p 0.987 and 0.98 p 0.33; −0.4 p 0.692. This may indicate that neither anxiety nor sleep disturbance scores have a significant impact on systolic and diastolic blood pressures.The findings suggest that the level of anxiety and sleep disturbances did not significantly contribute simultaneously to systolic and diastolic blood pressures.