Background and Objective: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has a significant effect on the elderly and affects all aspects of human psychology. The current study was conducted on people >60 years of age and a religious or ethnic minority. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between COVID-19 anxiety with sleep quality and death anxiety in the Zoroastrian elderly population in Yazd.
Methods: The population of the multivariate correlation study was 97 elderly Zoroastrians in 2021. The data collection tools were the Templer death anxiety scale, COVID-19 anxiety questionnaire and Petersburg sleep quality index. Data were analyzed using SPSS and AMOS through Pearson correlation and structural equations.
Findings: The results showed that the mean scores of COVID-19 anxiety, death anxiety and sleep quality were 29.9±9.40, 5.40±4.55 and 8.88±2.29, respectively. The direct effect of COVID-19 anxiety on sleep quality (β=0.303 and P<0.05) and death anxiety on sleep quality (β=0.439 and P<0.001) was statistically significant. There was a positive and significant relationship between COVID-19 anxiety with death anxiety and sleep quality (P<0.01). COVID-19 anxiety and death anxiety, in total, showed 39% of the variance in sleep quality variables.
Conclusion: The elderly participants had high COVID-19 anxiety, moderate death anxiety and poor sleep quality, and the sleep quality decreased with increasing COVID-19 anxiety and death anxiety. Thus, it is necessary to take appropriate interventions to reduce COVID-19 anxiety and death anxiety in the elderly in order to increase the quality of sleep and health of the elderly in this period.