COVID-19 Pandemic Effect on Stress Levels and Sleep Patterns

Abstract

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an respiratory disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus that cause serious illness and death. Physical distancing has important role to prevent and slow down its transmission but has some negative psychological effects such as stress, confusion, frustation, and sleep pattern changes. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on stress levels and sleep patterns. The subjects of this study were 100 medical students of Universitas Sumatera Utara. The data of this study was obtained by questionnaires and analyzed using Spearman correlation test. This study found that based on the stress level, there were 59 students categorized normal, mild 16 students, moderate 10 students, severe 9 students, and very severe 6 students. The sleep patterns described that only 11 students slept normally and 89 students experienced sleep disturbances during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study found there was a significant correlation between the COVID-19 pandemic on stress levels (p:0.01 and r:0.58) and sleep patterns (p:0.01 and r:0.36).