The Association of Insomnia and Stress on Cardiovascular Risk Factors during COVID-19 Confinement in the Mexican Population

Abstract

During the pandemic confinement, the WHO changed the term “social distancing” to “physical distancing”, to help people deal with the lack of social contact. As a result, there was an increase in mental health problems, including insomnia and stress, with a negative impact on cardiovascular health. The objective of this research was to identify the association between insomnia and stress and cardiovascular risk (CVR) during the pandemic in a sample of the general population in Mexico; the participants were chosen using the non-probabilistic method. The data were obtained from an online questionnaire about medical histories focused on cardiovascular risk, according to the Official Mexican Standards and Regulations for patients’ clinical records, NOM-004-SSA3-2012, along with an index for the severity of insomnia, measured with a seven-item guide, and an instrument to measure stress. The data were analyzed with descriptive statistics for several different variables: sociodemographics, stress, insomnia, and cardiovascular risk. Cardiovascular risk was compared to insomnia and stress variables, which led to statistically significant differences and correlations between the variables. Participants were divided into four groups with respect to CVR, from low to very high CVR. This research demonstrated that women were more susceptible to stress and cardiovascular risk. However, stress was a more major indicator of CVR than insomnia, but in the high and very high CVR groups, insomnia contributed along with stress; coping strategies reduced the risk in the high CVR group but did not function as expected with respect to reducing risk in the very high CVR group. These findings suggest that sleep patterns and mental health alterations present during the pandemic may persist even when the pandemic was declared as having ended and may contribute to increases in cardiovascular risk in the long-term.