Trouble sleeping and work-life balance in European workers in the COVID-19

• Autor(a) principal: Silva, Laura da
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10773/36285
• topic: Sleep; Work-life balance; Europe; Mental health; COVID-19

Framework: There are several consequences caused and/or intensified by the pandemic disease COVID-19 in the lives of citizens around the world. The containment measures to combat this pandemic have entailed changes at the professional, personal, and social levels as well as in people's physical and mental well-being. Faced with this atypical situation, sleep is likely to be affected. Objective: The aim of this study was to characterize the sleep profile of workers residing in Europe aged 50 years or older and to analyze their perception of changes in this pattern during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the implications on work-life balance. Methods: Cross-sectional study using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement (Wave 9). A sample of 65,318,138 workers from 27 countries in Europe was selected. Results: About a quarter of the respondents (24.5%) reported having sleep problems being mainly women who reported this most (30.7% vs19%). Regarding the number of working hours, regardless of whether they increased or decreased during the COVID-19 confinement, the proportion of people with sleep problems was always higher than those who did not report such a problem. Of those who reported sleep problems, the proportion increased in those with negative mental health symptoms (sad or depressed; anxious, nervous, or on edge) and those who reported financial difficulties (need to draw on savings). As for changes in sleep pattern, about a third of the individuals perceived a worsening of their sleep problems since the first wave observing here a higher proportion in men than in women (40.6% vs 28.2%). Working from home and experiencing feelings of insecurity also seem to be related to these worsening problems. Conclusions: The results suggest that sleep problems worsened during COVID-19 confinement in European workers and affected work-life balance.