Climacteric and sleep in women with prior COVID-19: pilot study

To evaluate sleep quality, hot flashes, and climacteric symptoms in women with prior SARS-CoV-2 infection at the Women's Sleep Clinic of Hospital São Paulo. To determine the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in this Clinic and to compare sleep quality, frequency of hot flashes, and climacteric symptoms between women with a previous SARS-CoV-2 infection and those without.

This is an analytical, observational, cross-sectional study, using a convenience sample from a Women's Sleep Clinic. The evaluation was conducted using the Menopause Rating Scale, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, the Kupperman Index, questions about previous SARS-CoV-2 infection, daily frequency of hot flashes, and sociodemographic data. Eighty-five women were included in the study, and the sample was distributed among women with prior SARS-CoV-2 infection (34) and women without (51). Group comparisons were performed using Generalized Linear Models (GzLM) with appropriate distributions, and associations were analyzed with Spearman correlation, with P <0.05 considered significant.

Women with prior SARS-CoV-2 infection showed significantly worse levels in the physical (4.54±0.25; Wald=10.6; P =0.001) and sexual (3.42±0.33; Wald=6.38; P =0.012) domains of the Menopause Rating Scale, reflecting a worse overall quality of life score (4.35±0.23; Wald=8.71; P =0.003).

In this pilot study, comparison between groups, women with previous SARS-CoV-2 infection had worse levels in the physical and sexual domains of the Menopause Rating Scale.