Stay-at-home circumstances do not produce sleep disorders: An international survey during the COVID-19 pandemic

Roitblat, Yulia; Burger, Jacob; Leit, Aidan; Nehuliaieva, Liliia; Умарова, Г. Ш.; Kaliberdenko, Vitalii B.; Kulanthaivel, Shanmugaraj; Buchris, Noa; Shterenshis, Michael

doi:10.1016/j.jpsychores.2020.110282

Cited by 49 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…However, sleep duration did not change due to the lockdown situation contrary to former findings [ 2 , 18 ]. We assume that this could be a result of differential reactions to the pandemic lockdown in each participant.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

“…Accordingly, studies [ 2 , 17 ] found that social jetlag decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, sleep duration increased, and sleep timing was delayed. Findings suggest that sleep duration increased during the lockdown and participants were able to extend their sleeping period as needed and change the timing of their sleep as preferred [ 18 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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COVID-19 lockdown – Are Austrians finally able to compensate their sleep debt?

Holzinger

Mayer²,

Nierwetberg³

et al. 2021

Sleep Medicine: X

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In order to control the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, Austria was put under national lockdown beginning on March 13, 2020, forcing its inhabitants to live in home confinement. The aim of this study was to measure the impact of the lockdown on sleep and dream behavior in Austrian citizens. 77 participants (50 women, 40.88 years, = 13.72) filled in an online questionnaire during the lockdown between April and May 2020. Sleep quality, sleep quantity, daytime sleepiness, and nightmare frequency were assessed and analyzed in relation to gender, burnout risk, perfectionism and chronotype. Results demonstrated higher subjective sleep quality during lockdown, especially in women. Daytime sleepiness was significantly lower during the lockdown period while sleep duration did not change. Results suggest that sleep issues are less prominent during the COVID-19 lockdown but point to the importance of prevention and treatment of sleep disorders aside from the pandemic. Findings indicate the need for more flexibility in social time structures to relieve those managing tasks from multiple areas of interests such as working mothers. Generalization of results is limited due to small sample size, self-selection bias, and purely subjective measures.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

COVID-19 lockdown – Are Austrians finally able to compensate their sleep debt?

Holzinger

Mayer²,

Nierwetberg³

et al. 2021

Sleep Medicine: X

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…An interesting consideration that emerges from the adolescent studies is that the changes favored by the lockdown seem to make their sleep-wake schedule more physiological. Different investigations reported that, during the confinement, adolescents’ sleep duration increased by approximately 1 hour, their sleep quality improved with less daytime sleepiness, the difference in the sleep duration between weekdays and weekends disappeared and the percentage of nappers decreased[ 17 , 18 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in sleep patterns and disturbances in children and adolescents in Italy during the Covid-19 outbreak

Bruni

Malorgio

Doria³

et al. 2022

Sleep Medicine

164

206

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Objective To examine the impact of home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic on the sleep patterns and sleep disturbances in Italian children and adolescents. Methods Participants completed an anonymous online survey, shared via social media and targeting children and adolescents aged 1 to 18 years, subdivided into age groups: 1-3, 4-5, 6-12, and 13-18 years. Caregivers completed a modified version of the Sleep Disturbance Scale for Children (SDSC), along with demographic information. Results The final sample consisted of 4,314 subjects: 2,217 males (50.4%) and 2,097 females (49.6%). Age group distribution was: 1-3 years 1,263 (29.3%), 4-5 years 893 (20.7%), 6-12 years 1,848 (42.8%) and 13-18 years 310 (7.2%). We found a significant delay in bedtime and risetime in all age groups. School-age children and adolescents experienced the most significant delay: weekday bedtime ≥23 was reported by 28.4% of 6- to 12-year-old children during lockdown vs. 0.9% before and by 63.5% vs. 12.3% of 13- to 18-year-old adolescents. Risetime was also delayed with most subjects waking up after 8 in all age groups and sleep duration increased in all groups but not in the younger group. The screen time (excluding online lessons) boosted during the lockdown, mainly in older children but also in younger children. Sleep disorders increased in all groups but not in adolescents. Younger groups had an increased prevalence of difficulty falling asleep, anxiety at bedtime, night awakenings, nightmares and sleep terrors. Conclusion Our study demonstrates that confinement due to COVID-19 determined a big delay in sleep/wake schedule of children in all age groups as well as an increase of sleep disturbances in all groups but adolescents.

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“…However, the COVID-19-mandated social restrictions have relaxed the social time pressure related to social jetlag so individuals can sleep longer and later. A study on 25,000 Argentinians ( Leone et al, 2020 ), another cross-national study on 3,787 participants ( Rome et al, 2020 ), another study on 7,517 participants from 40 countries ( Korman et al, 2020 ), and another cross-national study involving 11 countries on 14,000 participants ( Roitblat et al, 2020 ) showed that COVID-19 related lockdowns and social restrictions have themselves induced significant delays in chronotype. The current weakening of mismatch #4 (morning social pressure) plus the increase of mismatch #2 (artificial lighting) may have converged in increasing evening orientation, which might further complicate the epidemiological liability of mismatch #3 (nocturnal individuals defying the virus-mitigating social restriction protocols).…”

Section: Evolutionary Mismatches During the Covid-19 Pandemicmentioning

confidence: 99%

COVID-19 Pandemic on Fire: Evolved Propensities for Nocturnal Activities as a Liability Against Epidemiological Control

et al. 2021

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Humans have been using fire for hundreds of millennia, creating an ancestral expansion toward the nocturnal niche. The new adaptive challenges faced at night were recurrent enough to amplify existing psychological variation in our species. Night-time is dangerous and mysterious, so it selects for individuals with higher tendencies for paranoia, risk-taking, and sociability (because of security in numbers). During night-time, individuals are generally tired and show decreased self-control and increased impulsive behaviors. The lower visibility during night-time favors the partial concealment of identity and opens more opportunities for disinhibition of self-interested behaviors. Indeed, individuals with an evening-oriented chronotype are more paranoid, risk-taking, extraverted, impulsive, promiscuous, and have higher antisocial personality traits. However, under some circumstances, such as respiratory pandemics, the psychobehavioral traits favored by the nocturnal niche might be counter-productive, increasing contagion rates of a disease that can evade the behavioral immune system because its disease cues are often nonexistent or mild. The eveningness epidemiological liability hypothesis presented here suggests that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the evening-oriented psychobehavioral profile can have collectively harmful consequences: there is a clash of core tendencies between the nocturnal chronotype and the recent viral transmission-mitigating safety guidelines and rules. The pandemic safety protocols disrupt much normal social activity, particularly at night when making new social contacts is desired. The SARS-CoV-2 virus is contagious even in presymptomatic and asymptomatic individuals, which enables it to mostly evade our evolved contagious disease avoidance mechanisms. A growing body of research has indirectly shown that individual traits interfering with social distancing and anti-contagion measures are related to those of the nocturnal chronotype. Indeed, some of the social contexts that have been identified as superspreading events occur at night, such as in restaurants, bars, and nightclubs. Furthermore, nocturnal environmental conditions favor the survival of the SARS-CoV-2 virus much longer than daytime conditions. We compare the eveningness epidemiological liability hypothesis with other factors related to non-compliance with pandemic safety protocols, namely sex, age, and life history. Although there is not yet a direct link between the nocturnal chronotype and non-compliance with pandemic safety protocols, security measures and future empirical research should take this crucial evolutionary mismatch and adaptive metaproblem into account, and focus on how to avoid nocturnal individuals becoming superspreaders, offering secure alternatives for nocturnal social activities.

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Stay-at-home circumstances do not produce sleep disorders: An international survey during the COVID-19 pandemic

Cited by 49 publications

References 25 publications

COVID-19 lockdown – Are Austrians finally able to compensate their sleep debt?

COVID-19 lockdown – Are Austrians finally able to compensate their sleep debt?

Changes in sleep patterns and disturbances in children and adolescents in Italy during the Covid-19 outbreak

COVID-19 Pandemic on Fire: Evolved Propensities for Nocturnal Activities as a Liability Against Epidemiological Control

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