High risk of infection caused posttraumatic stress symptoms in individuals with poor sleep quality: A study on influence of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in China

Fan Zhang; Zhilei Shang; Haiying Ma; Yanpu Jia; Luna Sun; Xin Guo; Lili Wu; Zhuoer Sun; Yaoguang Zhou; Yan Wang; Nianqi Liu; Weizhi Liu

Difficulty in falling asleep might be a result of increased presleep cognitions. According to Fast (2003) , traumatic experiences caused reactions of fear, increased arousal and re-experience, and these reactions affected presleep cognitions and leaded to chances of sleep onset latency. Increased sleep onset latency then influenced mood, cognition and physiological responses. Limitations of the current study included the use of a health example and the fact that we used online survey in data collection. Only a few subjects were confirmed or suspected COVID-19 patients in our study. And the mean levels of sleep quality and PTSS were in the moderate range. For those being infected with COVID-19, sleep and metal health problems might be far more severe. Considering the risk of infection, we used online survey to investigate relationship among Wuhan exposure history, sleep and PTSS. However, it was hard to guarantee authenticity with this method and the validity was limited. We suggested that future studies could exam PTSD and related factors among COVID-19 survivors with face-to-face investigation or interview.