Sleep problems during COVID-19 pandemic by population: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Jahrami, Haitham; BaHammam, Ahmed S; Bragazzi, Nicola Luigi; Saif, Zahra; Faris, MoezAlIslam; Vitiello, Michael V

STUDY OBJECTIVES No systematic review or meta-analysis has yet been conducted to examine the impact of the pandemic on the prevalence of sleep problems among the general population, healthcare workers, or COVID-19 patients. Therefore, this systematic review was conducted to assess the impact and prevalence of sleep problems among those categories. METHODS APA PsycINFO; Cochrane; Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL); EBSCOhost; EMBASE; Google Scholar; MEDLINE; ProQuest Medical; ScienceDirect; Scopus; and Web of Science from 01 November 2019 to 05 July 2020. Additionally, four preprints servers (medRxiv.org; Preprints.org; psyarxiv.com; arXiv.org; biorxiv.org) were also searched for papers accepted after peer-review but not yet published and indexed. There was no language restriction. The random-effect models meta-analysis model were used with the DerSimonian and Laird methodology. RESULTS Forty-four papers, involving a total of 54,231 participants from 13 countries, were judged relevant and contributed to the systematic review and meta-analysis of sleep problems during COVID-19. The global pooled prevalence rate of sleep problems among all populations was 35.7% [95%CI 29.4-42.4%]. COVID-19 patients appeared to be the most affected group, with a pooled rate of 74.8% [95%CI 28.7-95.6%]. Healthcare workers and the general population had comparative rates of sleep problems with rates of 36.0% [95%CI 21.1-54.2%] and 32.3% [95%CI 25.3-40.2%], respectively. CONCLUSIONS The prevalence of sleep problems during the COVID-19 pandemic is high and approximately affect 40% of people from the general and healthcare populations. COVID-19 active patients appeared to have higher prevalence rates of sleep problems.