Comparison of Mental Health and Sleep Quality of Military and Nonmilitary People during Covid-19 Lockdown in Abdanan City

Military personnel is one of the levels of society whose psychological assessment is important in the current situation. During the prevalence of COVID-19, the military is also alongside health defenders has fought the virus, therefore, awareness of the mental state of the military forces has led to the recognition of their real needs, and helps planners to increase the optimal performance of military personnel. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate and compare the state of mental health and sleep quality between military and civilian personnel during the outbreak of COVID-19.

The research is descriptive-correlational. The researcher-made demographic information questionnaire, the Pittsburgh sleep questionnaire (PSQI) and Mental Health Questionnaire (DASS-21) were administered for 210 people (105 militaries, 105 civilians) coinciding with the holidays due to the spread of COVID-19 from March 5 to 20, 2020. To prevent the spread of COVID-19, the available sampling method and online implementation were used. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, independent t-test and chi-square and SPSS-24 software.

The results showed that military personnel had more contact with people with COVID-19 than civilians and there was a significant and strong relationship between the type of job and overall sleep quality during the prevalence of COVID-19 (P <0.05).and also, the military was in a more unfavorable situation than the civilians in the overall score of sleep quality and in all dimensions of sleep quality. There was a significant and weak relationship between job type with depression, anxiety and stress during the outbreak of COVID-19 (P <0.05) and the military was in a better position in terms of stress, anxiety and depression. It should be noted that in the total study population, the rate of severe anxiety was 67.1% and severe depression was 46.7%.

Since sleep quality is directly related to physical, mental health and optimal functioning of individuals, it is necessary to find a solution to the problems related to military sleep and due to the high percentage of depression and severe anxiety in the study population, the influential factors should be investigated and the necessary solution applied.