BACKGROUND
Since late December, a novel, emerging coronavirus has quickly spread out from the first epicenter, the city of Wuhan, province of Hubei, mainland China, becoming a pandemic. To contain the outbreak unprecedented public health measures have been enforced, including self-isolation, physical/social distancing, quarantine and lockdown of entire communities and territories. Despite being effective, these interventions are imposing a severe psycho-social distress.
OBJECTIVE
In the present investigation, we assessed the impact of behavioral non pharmacological interventions in terms of digital activities related to sleep disorders and specifically insomnia in Italy, one of the countries hit hard by the pandemic.
METHODS
We used a Big Data-based infodemiological approach, employing Google Trends, an open source instrument enabling real-time tracking and monitoring of web searches and digital activities.
RESULTS
We found that, on average, during the three months of quarantine and lockdown, searches related to COVID-19 and insomnia represented 6.8% and 12.4% of the entire search volumes related to COVID-19 and insomnia, respectively, peaking on May 17th 2020. A significant different in the geographic location of searches could be noted. The COVID-19 quarantine has caused an increase in searches related to insomnia. More in detail, the volumes correlated with the escalation of the measures adopted, decreasing during the de-escalation/re-opening phases.
CONCLUSIONS
Healthcare providers and other relevant stakeholders, when enforcing particularly restrictive measures, should routinely employ Big Data-based tools in order screen for sleep problems such as insomnia and other mental issues, in that sleep is a vital and integral component of human life and normal emotional functioning, and sleep disturbances can lead to or worsen pre-existing mental health diseases.