Affiliation:
1. Department of Psychology Florida State University Tallahassee Florida USA
2. Department of Psychology University of Houston Houston Texas USA
3. HEALTH Institute University of Houston Houston Texas USA
4. Department of Behavioral Science The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Houston Texas USA
Abstract
AbstractLatinx persons have endured elevated rates of traumatic stress related to the COVID‐19 pandemic. The effect of potentially traumatic pandemic stressors on anxiety‐related sleep disturbances, a factor implicated in trauma‐related psychopathology, is largely unexamined in this population. The present study evaluated the additive effect of potentially traumatic pandemic stressors (e.g., hospitalization) on anxiety‐related sleep disturbances. Further, given within‐group disparities across Latinx communities with intersectional identities and COVID‐19–related risk factors, comparisons of the likelihood of pandemic stressors, by subgroup (i.e., older persons, individuals with chronic illness, and Black Latinx persons), were evaluated. Participants were 292 (29.8% female, Mage = 35.03 years, SD = 8.72) Latinx adults who completed a questionnaire battery during a period of high contagion (June 2020–July 2021). There were statistically significant differences across groups such that participants who experienced any potentially traumatic pandemic stressors reported elevated scores on indices of anxiety, depressive symptoms, and anxiety‐related sleep disturbances compared to those who had not experienced these stressors, ds = 0.54–93. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that hospitalization was associated with anxiety‐related sleep disturbances after controlling for age, sex, chronic illness history, other stressors, anxiety, depressive symptoms, and somatic symptom burden, ΔR2 = .01. Black Latinx identity and chronic illness were significantly associated with potentially traumatic pandemic‐related stressors. This is the first empirical work to evaluate the role of potentially traumatic pandemic stressors on sleep disturbances among Latinx persons and indicates that hospitalization in a pandemic context has an incremental effect on sleep disturbances in this minoritized group.
Funder
NIH Office of the Director
National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities
Subject
Psychiatry and Mental health,Clinical Psychology