Worry and insomnia as risk factors for depression during initial stages of COVID-19 pandemic in India

Abstract

The biggest nationwide COVID-19 pandemic lockdown worldwide was enforced in India for an initial period of 21-days. Emerging evidence suggests that pandemic situations and associated lockdowns have an adverse impact on sleep and mental health. However, prediction of sleep health from sociodemographic characteristics and the public’s worry during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic has not been extensively explored so far. It’s also unclear whether sleep outcomes mediate the association between worry and mental health during pandemic situations. A web-survey (N = 391) on sociodemographic characteristics, COVID-19 related worry, sleep health (insomnia and daytime sleepiness), and depression was conducted during the initial 21-days of the COVID-19 stringent lockdown in India. Multiple regression analyses showed that variables, including sex, age, income level, and worry score, contributed to the significant regression equation for insomnia but not for daytime sleepiness. Specifically, the female, younger, lower income, and highly worried populations contributed significantly more than the male, elderly, higher income, and less worried populations, respectively, to the prediction of insomnia. Mediation analyses showed that insomnia, but not daytime sleepiness, fully mediated the relationship between worry score and severity of depressive symptoms. We provide evidence that the female, younger, lower income, and worried populations may be at higher risk for insomnia during pandemic situations. Current evidence gives hope that improving sleep may reduce depressive symptoms during a pandemic situation. This underscores the importance of the implementation of effective public health policies in conjunction with strategical responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sleep disturbances during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review, meta-analysis, and meta-regression

“…A total of 250 studies [285 subgroups, i.e., multiple populations, multiple tools, or multiple data points] comprising 493,475 participants from 49 countries were included in the analyses [ [43] , [44] , [45] , [46] , [47] , [48] , [49] , [50] , [51] , [52] , [53] , [54] , [55] , [56] , [57] , [58] , [59] , [60] , [61] , [62] , [63] , [64] , [65] , [66] , [67] , [68] , [69] , [70] , [71] , [72] , [73] , [74] , [75] , [76] , [77] , [78] , [79] , [80] , [81] , [82] , [83] , [84] , [85] , [86] , [87] , [88] , [89] , [90] , [91] , [92] , [93] , [94] , [95] , [96] , [97] , [98] , [99] , [100] , [101] , [102] , [103] , [104] , [105] , [106] , [10...…”

The Efficacy of Computerized Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Depressive and Anxiety Symptoms in Patients With COVID-19: Randomized Controlled Trial

“…Previous studies indicated that females were a high-risk population for insomnia [ 59 ]. A meta-analysis revealed the prevalence of insomnia in females was higher than that in males [ 60 ]; also, females were the predicted risk factor of insomnia during the COVID-19 pandemic [ 61 , 62 ]. Our results supported previous studies.…”

Effects of COVID-19-related worry and rumination on mental health and loneliness during the pandemic: Longitudinal analyses of adults in the UK COVID-19 Mental Health & Wellbeing study

“…We are unaware of any other published longitudinal study that has tracked COVID-related worry and rumination over the course of the pandemic or that has investigated whether weeks with higher COVID-related worry and rumination were associated with more negative mental health outcomes. A small number of studies have investigated the effects of worry and rumination early in the pandemic (e.g., Bajaj et al, 2020;Baker & van Wingerden, 2021). For example, Bajaj and colleagues (2020) showed that COVID-related worry was associated with more severe depressive symptoms during the initial 21-days of the first lockdown in India (starting 25 th March 2020).…”