Survey of Insomnia and Related Social Psychological Factors Among Medical Staffs Involved with the 2019 Novel Coronavirus Disease Outbreak

Background: The outbreak of 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) caused not only extraordinary public health concerns but also tremendous psychological distress, particularly among medical staffs. We aimed to investigate the prevalence rate of insomnia and confirm the related social psychological factors among medical staffs in hospitals during the COVID-19 outbreak. Method: Medical staffs in China were recruited, including frontline medical workers. The questionnaire obtained demographic data, self-design questions related to the COVID-19 outbreak, insomnia/depressive/anxiety symptoms, and stress related symptoms through WeChat program. We used logistic regression analysis to examine the associations between sociodemographic factors and insomnia symptoms. Finding: There were 1,563 participants in our study. Five hundred and sixty-four (36.1%) participants had insomnia symptoms according to Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) (total score ≥ 8). Multiple binary logistic regression model revealed that insomnia symptoms were associated with the education level of high school or below (OR = 2.69, p = 0.042, 95%CI = 1.0–7.0), occupation of doctor (OR = 0.44, p = 0.007, 95%CI = 0.2–0.8), currently working in isolation unit (OR = 1.71, p = 0.038, 95%CI = 1.0–2.8), worried about being infected (OR = 2.30, p < 0.001, 95%CI = 1.6–3.4), being perceived not helpful on psychological support from news or social media about COVID-19 (OR = 2.10, p = 0.001, 95%CI = 1.3–3.3) and having very strong uncertainty regarding effective disease control (OR = 3.30, p = 0.013, 95%CI = 1.3–8.5). Interpretation: Our study found more than one third of the medical staff suffered from insomnia symptoms during the COVID-19 outbreak. The related factors were including education level, isolation environment, social psychological worries about the COVID-19 outbreak, and occupation of doctor. Interventions of insomnia on medical staffs were needed considering different social psychological factors. Funding Statement: This study was funded by the President Foundation of Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University (2019Z014), Key Item of Guangzhou bureau of education (2019KC106), National Natural Science Foundation (81901348), and the National Key R&D Program of China (2018YFC1314600). Declaration of Interests: All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest. Ethics Approval Statement: The current study was approved by the ethics committee of Nanfang hospital in Southern Medical University. Only with the informed consent of the respondents did the questionnaire. The survey was conducted anonymously in order to protect the respondents’ privacy.