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ABSTRACT
Objectives
The purpose of this study was to investigate athletes sleep quality before competition and its relationship with age, gender, sport modality, competitive level, competition result, and practice time.
Methods
The sample was 1010 Brazilian athletes (656 men and 354 women; 511 young and 499 adults), with an age of 20 ± 7 years old. Participants answered the question ‘How would you evaluate the quality of your sleep in the past few days?’ Participants rated their sleep quality on a Likert-type scale as follows: 1 = very poor, 2 = poor, 3 = regular, 4 = good, 5 = excellent.
Results
Young athletes were 2.30 times more likely to experience poor sleep than adult athletes (p < 0.01; 95% Confidence Interval [CI] = 1.47–3.61). Individual athletes were 3.45 times more likely to present poor sleep compared to athletes of team sports (p = 0.00; 95% CI = 2.18–5.48). International athletes were 1.71 times more likely to present regular sleep compared to regional athletes (p = 0.01; 95% CI = 1.16–2.51). Conclusions: Thus, our study indicates that young, individual sports, and international athletes may be at higher risk of poor sleep quality before competitions.
Declaration of interest
The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties. Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial relationships to disclose.