The Effect of Gender and Level of Physical Activity on Quality of Life and Sleep of Elderly in Kurdistan Province; One Year after Beginning of Social Isolation Caused by Coronavirus Pandemic

Introduction: The social isolation caused by the pandemic of Covid-19 affected all aspects of life and different groups of society, one of which was the elderly affected by the disease. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of gender and physical activity on the quality of life and sleep of the elderly in Kurdistan province after one year of the beginning of the pandemic of Covid-19. Methods: The current research method is causal-comparative. 184 people (>60 years) participated in the study in a clustering method and proportion to the population of Kurdistan's cities. Baecke Physical Activity, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality, and Leiden-Padua questionnaires were used to collect information on physical activity, sleep, and quality of life, respectively. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to analyze the research data. Results: The results showed that gender had no significant effect on sleep quality but had a significant effect on the quality of life on the scales of depression and anxiety, and sexual performance (P=0.001). However, physical activity has a significant effect on both sleep quality (P=0.02) and quality of life (P<0.001). Conclusions: The results of the present study showed that physical activity can reduce sleep problems in the elderly, especially problems caused by sleep latency, subjective sleep quality, and sleep disturbances. Findings also showed Physical activity plays a key role in increasing the quality of life of the elderly in terms of physical, social, and sexual performance, and also self-care. Results also showed, that physical activity has a positive effect on the quality of sleep and life of the elderly and can be useful in reducing complaints caused by related problems. It also showed that in stressful conditions, women suffer from depression and anxiety, and sexual problems more than men and experience a lower quality of life.