716 Loneliness and Lockdowns: The Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Insomnia Symptoms

Abstract

IntroductionInsomnia is a critical health issue that has serious consequences for both psychological and physical health. These consequences have become even more exacerbated during the course of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, as fears of the virus continue to grow and community lockdowns persist. Loneliness has also become a growing mental health concern as a result of the pandemic, and previous research has identified COVID-19 loneliness as a contributing factor to higher rates of insomnia. The current study aimed to investigate the relationship between insomnia, loneliness, and lockdown orders across the first 6-months of the pandemic. We hypothesized that being lonely and under lockdown would lead to greater insomnia, even after controlling for anxiety, and this would become more pronounced over the course of the pandemic.Methods6,101 English-speaking adults from across the U.S. (18–84 years old; 53.6% female) completed an online, monthly, cross-sectional (~1000 participants per month), battery of assessments that included the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), UCLA Loneliness Scale – Version 3, Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 scale (GAD 7), demographic questions, and a COVID-19 questionnaire between April 2020 and September 2020. A 2 (lonely vs. not lonely) x 2 (lockdown vs. no lockdown) x 2 (Time 1 April-June vs. Time 2 July-September) ANCOVA was conducted to determine the effects of these variables on insomnia, while also controlling for anxiety symptoms.ResultsSignificant main effects of lockdown status, F(1,8) = 22.72, p < .001, time, F(1,8) = 4.94, p = .026, and loneliness, F(1,8) = 65.18, p < .001, were observed, as a well as a significant interaction effect between lockdown status and time, F(1,8) = 8.47, p = .004, after controlling for anxiety.ConclusionOverall, lonely people under lockdown had the highest levels of insomnia at both Time 1 and Time 2. Non-lonely people consistently had lower levels of insomnia than lonely people across the 6-month period; however, being under lockdown also contributed to higher levels of insomnia regardless of loneliness, which increased with each passing month of the pandemic. Loneliness and lockdowns each appear to be independently associated with elevated insomnia during the COVID-19 pandemic.Support (if any):