Edlin Garcia
Edlin Garcia is a second-year Health Behavior doctoral student in the Department of Applied Health Science in the School of Public Health at Indiana University Bloomington. She is an awardee of the President’s Diversity Fellowship. Her research interests include behavioral health (i.e., mental, emotional, and substance use), mental health literacy, and mental health help-seeking behaviors among adults. She holds a bachelor’s in Global Studies from UC Santa Barbara and a Master of Public Health degree from the University of South Florida. Edlin has published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, American Journal of Men’s Health, and Journal of Applied Gerontology.
The Relationship between Personal SARS-CoV-2 Experiences and Sleep Duration among College Students in Fall 2020
Edlin Garcia, Chen Chen, Sina Kianersi, Christina Ludema, Molly Rosenberg, and Jonathan T Macy
Background: Sleep is associated with overall physical and mental health. Insufficient sleep weakens the immune system, making individuals more susceptible to infections, including SARS-CoV-2 infections, and, once infected, less able to mount a strong immune response.
Objective: The aim of this study was to test whether two personal SARS-CoV-2 experiences, knowing someone who had died of SARS-CoV-2 infection, and having received a positive SARS-CoV-2 test result, were associated with shorter sleep duration (<7 hours) among undergraduate students.
Methods: An online cross-sectional study was conducted in a large public Midwestern university in September 2020. Self-reported average sleep duration and the two exposures of interest, knowing someone who died from a SARS-CoV-2 infection and their own SARS-CoV-2 test result, were collected from 1,073 undergraduate study participants.
Results: Respondents who knew someone who had died of a SARS-CoV-2 infection were significantly more likely to report having a short sleep duration (aOR = 1.80, 95% CI: 1.14, 2.79), compared to respondents who did not know someone who had died of a SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, those with a positive SARS-CoV-2 test result were significantly less likely to report a short sleep duration (aOR = 0.47, 95% CI: 0.21, 0.91), compared to respondents without a positive test history.
Conclusions: These findings suggest that college students’ experiences with SARS-CoV-2 may influence sleep duration. However, different experiences may impact sleep differently, so further research is warranted to better understand how unusual events impact the sleep of college students.
Accessibility Note: To access auto closed captions (CC) services please click on the CC icon in the bottom of the video. Manual CC are available by submitting a request for services to ATAC: (812) 856-4112 or atac@iu.edu