Prevalence of Poor Sleep Quality Among Physicians During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Sleep quality is influenced adversely or favorably by various intrinsic and extrinsic factors and sleep deprivation is a common problem facing doctors.

To assess sleep quality among physicians during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and correlate it with possible predictors.

This cross-sectional four-months study included a total of 344 physicians from different medical centers in the period between July 2020 and October 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Physicians were aged between 24 and 60 years from different specialties. Data were collected using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) questionnaire and Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale (HADS).

Among our participant physicians there was poor sleep quality in 71.2%, while good sleep quality was present in 28.8%. There were significant correlations between poor sleep quality and the following parameters in the univariate logistic regression analysis: anxiety features (P value <0.001), depressive features (P value <0.001), and past history of COVID-19 (P value 0.003). However, multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that only the presence of anxiety features (P value <0.001) and depressive features (P value <0.001) could be used as significant independent predictor of poor sleep quality among physicians during COVID-19.

Presence of anxiety and or depressive features among physicians are the most significant independent predictors of poor sleep quality during the COVID-19 pandemic.