Lifestyles and their association with stress and sleep during the COVID-19 lockdown in students

Abstract

Aim/question

To assess lifestyle changes during Covid-19 lockdown and how they are associated with mental health through stress and sleep of university students in health sciences.

Methods

Cross-sectional design with a descriptive analysis of lifestyles and multivariate logistic regression to determine their association with stress, insomnia and perceived health were carried out.

Results

Most of 153 students were not active smokers, but the rate of not consumer was less than 20%. The multivariate models showed the influence of stress, insomnia and self-perceived health on each other, with the participation of factors related with diet pattern and alcohol consumption.

Conclusions

It is widely known that insomnia increases with stress; in our study it is also negatively influenced and, therefore, in a healthy way, by adherence to the Mediterranean diet, which is consistent with the results described by other authors.

These results are important for organizing mental Health care for young students, as well as for young people from vulnerable populations where it is foreseeable that the effects derived from lifestyles on the stress- insomnia-health axis will be magnified.