Article Text
Abstract
Objective Insufficient sleep duration and quality has negative effects on athletic performance, injury susceptibility and athlete development. This study aimed to assess the sleep characteristics of professional Qatar Stars League (QSL) soccer players.
Methods In a cross-sectional study, QSL players (n=111; 23.7±4.8 years) completed three questionnaires to screen sleep disorders: (1) Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), (2) Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) and (3) Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS). Poor sleep quality was defined as PSQI≥5, excessive daytime sleepiness was defined by ESS>8 and insomnia was defined as ISI≥11.
Results The prevalence of poor sleep quality (PSQI≥5) was 68.5%, with subthreshold insomnia (ISI≥11) 27.0% and daytime sleepiness 22.5% (ESS>8). Sleep quality was positively associated with insomnia (r=0.42, p<0.001) and daytime sleepiness (r=0.23, p=0.018). Age, anthropometry, body composition and ethnicity were not associated with any of the reported sleep quality parameters.
Conclusion The prevalence of poor sleep quality (68.5%) reported should concern practitioners. Increasing awareness of the importance of sleep relative to athletic performance, recovery, injury and illness appears prudent. Further, regular qualitative/quantitative sleep monitoring may help target subsequent evidence-informed interventions to improve sleep in those demonstrating undesirable sleep traits.
- soccer
- Middle East
- Arab
- Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI)
- Insomnia Severity Index (ISI)
- Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS)
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Footnotes
LT and FEM contributed equally.
Contributors KK, AF and CPH contributed to experimental design and data collection. KK and AF did the data analysis. All authors contributed to the manuscript drafting, revising critically for important intellectual content and agreed to the submitted version of the manuscript.
Funding The publication of this article was funded by the Qatar National Library.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Ethics approval The study was approved by the IRB at Aspetar and the Shafallah Medical Genetics Centre (Doha, Qatar) (IRB No: 2012-00X).
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data sharing statement Data are available upon reasonable request.