A research team at Seoul National University Bundang Hospital (SNUBH) discovered for the first time in Korea that people who have caught Covid-19 are 3.3 times likelier to experience insomnia than those who have not.

Various studies show that the prevalence of insomnia has increased since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. The number of insomnia patients worldwide has rapidly increased, and Korea has also shown an increase of 5.78 percent compared to the average. Still, most insomnia studies have identified Covid-19 as an indirect social impact rather than a direct one.

However, the research team, led by Professor Oh Tak-gyu of the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, confirmed a direct correlation between Covid-19 and insomnia.

Professor Oh's team analyzed the prevalence of insomnia in 300,000 people – 7,000 confirmed people and 230,000 non-confirmed ones -- based on the National Health Insurance Service's Covid-19 cohort data from January to June last year.

The team used various variables such as gender, age, and mental illness in the study.

As a result, the researchers confirmed that those who tested positive for Covid-19 are 3.3 times likelier to suffer from insomnia than those who never had the virus.

Notably, the risk increased 3.5 times among women and 4.2 times among people in their 40s and 50s. And the increase in insomnia according to the diagnosis was larger in patients with no mental illness or a low exacerbation of the underlying disease.

The hospital explained that these findings suggest that the Covid-19 virus may directly impact the increased incidence of insomnia and that the risk of insomnia increases significantly in healthy people rather than the elderly.

"This study is meaningful as the first one to prove the correlation between Covid-19 and insomnia," Professor Oh said. "As the nation expects an increase in the number of confirmed cases with the implementation of the 'living-with-Covid' system, we expect health officials to use this study to prevent the deterioration of the quality of life experienced by those who test positive for Covid-19."

Journal of Korean Neuropsychiatric Association has published the results of the study.