Healthy sleep schedule prior to COVID-19 infection prevents long covid: JAMA.

There is a lack of data on whether healthy sleep, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, before SARS-CoV-2 infection, has a protective effect against post–COVID-19 condition (PCC).

Investigating further, the researchers did a prospective cohort study. They measured Sleep health both before (June 1, 2015, to May 31, 2017) and early (April 1 to August 31, 2020) in the COVID-19 pandemic.

The five dimensions of the pre-pandemic sleep score were morning chronotype, 7 to 8 hours of sleep per day, low insomnia symptoms, no snoring, and no frequent daytime dysfunction.

Primary Outcomes were SARS-CoV-2 infection and PCC (≥ four weeks of symptoms) self-reported during one year of follow-up.

The study results are:

• One thousand nine hundred seventy-nine participants reported SARS-CoV-2 infection with a mean age of 64.7 years.
• 845 constituting 42.7%, were frontline healthcare workers.
• 44 % developed PCC.
• Compared with women having pre-pandemic sleep scores of 0 or 1 (least healthy), those who scored 5 (most healthy) were at less risk of developing PCC by 30%.
• Associations did not differ by the status of health care workers.
• No or little daytime dysfunction pre-pandemic and good sleep quality during the pandemic were independently associated with a lower risk of PCC.
• Results were similar when PCC was defined as having eight or more weeks of symptoms or as having ongoing symptoms at the time of PCC assessment.

The study strengths were longitudinal design and less measurement error.

Our study had several limitations, they said. This included limiting the generalizability of the findings, non-applicability of findings to currently prevalent strains, bias, misclassification, and small sample size.

Concluding further, they mentioned healthy sleep before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, prior to infection, reduces the risk of PCC.

Further investigations are warranted on whether improving sleep health may prevent or alleviate PCC symptoms.

Further reading:

Wang S, Huang T, Weisskopf MG, Kang JH, Chavarro JE, Roberts AL. Multidimensional Sleep Health Prior to SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Risk of Post–COVID-19 Condition. JAMA Netw Open. 2023;6(5):e2315885. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.15885