719 Insomnia in Those Diagnosed with COVID-19

Taylor, Emily; Cloonan, Sara; Grandner, Michael; Killgore, William

INTRODUCTION: Recent meta-analyses suggest that as many as 75% of COVID-19 patients report sleep problems. Here, we sought to characterize this in terms of self-reported insomnia. We hypothesized that those endorsing a positive COVID-19 diagnosis would also report greater levels of insomnia than those with a negative diagnosis. METHODS: Between April and September 2020 we administered the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), each month to a total of 6162 English speaking adults in the United States ranging in age from 18–84 (M=36.2 years, SD=12.1; 53.9% female), recruited from all 50 states and the District of Columbia using Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) crowdsourcing platform. Data collections occurred cross-sectionally, approximately one month apart. Data were analyzed using Kruskal-Wallis H tests. RESULTS: In total, 247 (4.01%) participants responded “Yes” to the question “Have you been formally diagnosed with COVID-19?” (male=128, female=119). Those reporting “yes” had a higher mean score on the ISI (M=14.52, SD=5.56) compared to reporting “no” (M=9.98, SD=6.55). Total ISI scores were higher for those who reported that they were diagnosed with COVID-19 than those that did not, χ2(1)=121.818, p=0.0001. Among those that reported that they were diagnosed with COVID-19, 57.11% had ISI scores indicating moderate to severe clinical insomnia compared to 25.42% of those who were not diagnosed with COVID-19. CONCLUSION: Those who reported that they had been diagnosed with COVID 19 had greater insomnia compared to those without such a diagnosis. This could be due to greater stress and anxiety in those who had a positive COVID-19 diagnosis due to the many uncertainties surrounding the short and long-term prognosis as well as potential impacts on the individual’s family and workplace. However, it is important to consider the broader health picture of those diagnosed with COVID-19. This study is limited by the nature of the self-reported data, where we cannot verify a positive COVID-19 test. Causality cannot be inferred due to the cross-sectional nature of this study. Future work will need to determine the extent to which sleep-related factors are due to biological versus psychological factors associated with the diagnosis of COVID-19. Support (if any):