Various studies have shown the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on mental health, identifying that people with a strong fear of getting infected are more prone to become stressed, depressed, anxious and to experience sleeping disturbance. The present study focuses on the impact of fear of COVID-19 and its relationship with insomnia among dentists. 83 dentists from public and private clinics were included in the research. A questionnaire was especially constructed for this study, consisting of three parts: the first part gathered socio-demographic and medical data, and a succession of self-rated items collected opinions about lockdown and preventive behaviors; the second part evaluated the level of fear of infection with Coronavirus-19 using the Fear of Covid 19 Scale; the third part investigated the presence of insomnia using the Athens Insomnia Scale. Collected data were processed using SPSS (v. 25). The total scores for fear of COVID 19 and insomnia were assessed. A strong positive correlation was identified between the total score of AIS and the total score of FCV-19S. The fear of COVID-19 had a significant positive correlation with the practice of several preventive behaviors. Dentists with chronic diseases were found to be more prone to suffer from insomnia than healthy dentists. Significant differences between women and men in terms of night symptoms were discussed. The findings are useful for dentists and policy makers to evaluate the impact of fear of infection on mental health status.
Keywords: Athens Insomnia Scale; anxiety; dentist; fear; fear of Covid-19; insomnia; mental health; pandemic; preventive behavior; stress.