Elite Chilean Athlete's Sleep Profiles Before A Mega Sports Event

A link has been described between sleep and sports performance. Not many sleep screening tools are directed at athletes. The “Athlete Sleep Screening Questionnaire” (ASSQ) is a validated questionnaire for the screening of athletes who are at risk of developing sleep disorders. There is a lack of evidence regarding sleep parameters in athletes before competitions, and none directed at Chilean athletes. PURPOSE: To determine the sleep profiles of elite Chilean athletes before a mega sports event. METHODS: A socio-demographic questionnaire was applied to elite Chilean athletes together with the ASSQ at 3 months (T1) and one week before (T2) the PanAmerican Games “Santiago 2023”. The ASSQ measures several sleep parameters, such as sleep latency, total time and quality, which add up to a Sleep Difficulty Score (SDS) to stratify risk of developing sleep disorders, and also includes some modifiers like screen use and caffeine intake. Results were categorized by sex, age and sport. The sample was recruited from Centro de Alto Rendimiento in Chile. The initial survey was applied in person, while the follow up was applied online. Data was only taken after the approval of the informed consent. A Welch’s T test was applied to compare the results at 90% confidence interval. RESULTS: A total of 239 athletes were surveyed, where 42.6% were female athletes. Age ranged from 18 to 47 years, from individual sports such as judo, surf and track and field, and collective sports like volleyball, field hockey and handball. Only 72 athletes completed the follow up at T2. The average sleep difficulty scores were 6.27 and 6.01 at 3 months and one week before the event, respectively (mild risk). This variation was not significant. Male athletes improved their score significantly from 6.48 to 5.65 (p = 0.08, IC: 90%). Of the 21 high risk athletes at T1 (SDS >10), 41% belonged to Combat Sports. CONCLUSIONS: Several limitations were identified, like the percentage of follow-up loss, small sample size and the low availability of athletes before competitions. Nevertheless, we identified an important number of athletes with a moderate to high risk of developing sleep disorders thus showing the need for screening and developing interventions to improve the health and performance of athletes.