Fear of COVID-19 and Socio-cultural factors as Predictors of Sleep disturbances among Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Patients

Abstract

The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak has significantly impacted the course, severity and adherence to the treatment, thereby, exacerbating the preexisting conditions associated with psychological disorders. The objective of the current study was to examine the impact of fear related to COVID-19 along with other religious and socio-cultural factors such as paranormal beliefs on the sleep disturbances of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) patients. Purposive sampling strategy was employed in order to collect the data from a sample of 100 individuals with the age range of 20-45 diagnosed with OCD. The data was collected through online resources via google forms. Fear of COVID-19 scale, the centrality of religiosity scale, revised paranormal belief scale, PROMIS sleep disturbance scale and Yale Brown obsessive compulsive scale were used to measure the study variables. Variables were statistically analyzed by Pearson product moment correlation coefficient, multiple linear regression and t test analysis. The outcome of the present research illustrated significant positive relationship among fear of COVID-19, intense religiosity, paranormal beliefs and sleep disturbances. Moreover, results indicated that individuals with severe OCD scored higher on components of religiosity, paranormal beliefs, fear of COVID-19 and sleep disturbances as compared to patients reporting moderate level OCD symptoms. The results will help in understanding the psychological impact of COVID-19 and its associated socio-cultural and religious factors on sleep disturbances of OCD patients.