Chronotype, sleep hygiene, and sleep characteristics among athletes of different disciplines

The objective of the study was to assess chronotype, sleep hygiene, and sleep characteristics of Italian athletes in order to identify differences among sport disciplines (team- vs individual-sports), level of competition (Elite vs Non-Elite) and sexes. Moreover,correlationsbetweenchronotype,sleephygieneand sleepqualitywereevaluated.TwohundredeightyItalianathletes (Females:113; Males:167) participated in the study. They completed the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), the Sleep Hygiene Index (SHI) and the MorningnessEveningness Questionnaire(MEQ).Amongtheathletes,66.4%wereintermediate-type, 21.8%weremorning-typeand11.8%wereevening-type.55.4% of the sample was classified as good sleeper (PSQI<5), while 16.1% had poor sleep hygiene (SHI≥35). Females had higher totalsleeptime(p=0.022)thanmales.Individual-sportsshowed more morning-oriented score (p = 0.001) and lower PSQI (p=0.006)andSHI(p<0.001)scores,withearliertimingofsleep (bedtime:p<0.001;wake-uptime:p<0.001)comparedtoteamsports. Elite athletes exhibited greater sleep efficiency (p=0.009), and lower sleep latency (p=0.018) and wake after sleep onset (p=0.043) than Non-Elite athletes. Additionally, significant correlations were found between PSQI and SHI (r = 0.43, p < 0.001), and between MEQ and SHI (r = −0.35, p<0.001).Thisstudyyieldscrucialinsightsintothesleepbehaviors of Italian athletes, revealing that nearly half of the sample were bad sleepers.