The Evaluation of Sleep Disturbances for Chinese Frontline Medical Workers under the Outbreak of COVID-19

Jing Qi; Jing Xu; Bozhi Li; Jinsha Huang; Yuan Yang; Zhentao Zhang; Dongai Yao; Qunhui Liu; Min Jia; Daokai Gong; Xiaohong Ni; Qimei Zhang; Furong Shang; Nian Xiong; Chunli Zhu; Tao Wang; Xi Zhang

The outbreak of COVID-19 in China has aroused extensive public concern in recent months. 2 Many countries are also experiencing the invasion of COVID-19, such as Japan, South Korea, Italy, Iran, etc. 12 The rapid spread of the disease and inadequate early realization toward COVID-19 challenged the health institutions in many countries. In addition, the mortality of COVID-19 was 2.3%, and medical workers accounted for 3.8% in COVID-19 patients, as reported by the latest epidemiological study. 13 Previous studies have indicated that in ordinary times, medical workers were vulnerable to sleep disturbances, which may be higher than the general population. 7 China demonstrated that civil servants had the shortest sleep duration (Mean 7.85 hours) and the worst sleep quality, who may experience with more work pressure. 14 Meanwhile, 64.1% of police officers had PSQI > 5 points, and were regarded as sleep disturbances as reported. Their sleep disturbances were related to posttraumatic stress and general psychopathology. 17 A survey from Japan indicated that high occupational stress was significantly associated with insomnia, especially the presence of high efforts but low reward. 18 And exposure to long working hours and irregular work shifts may attribute to stress, fatigue, and chronic diseases, 19 which may influence the quantity and quality of sleep. Schiller et al. 16 compared sleep quality and sleep duration between full worktime subjects and 75% reduced worktime subjects, and found the latter presented with improved sleep quality and sleep duration. The reduction of worktime may be useful for alleviating sleep disturbances.