Sleep disturbances, mental health symptoms, and chronotype in Chinese elite athletes: insights from the Beijing 2022 winter olympics preparatory period.

Objectives: The present study aimed to investigate sleep disturbance and mental health symptoms in elite athletes during the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics preparatory period and whether they were associated with chronotype.

Method: This study included 428 elite Chinese winter sports athletes from the National Training Team (the response proportion was 94.1%) in August 2021. All participants completed self-reported scales, including Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) to assess sleep disturbance, the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Seven-Item (GAD-7) and the Patient Health Questionnaire Nine-Item (PHQ-9) to assess mental health symptoms (including anxiety and depression symptoms). Multivariable logistic regression models were applied to identify factors associated with sleep and mental health symptoms.

Results: In this study, we found that the point prevalence was 13.1% (95% confidence interval [CI] 11.5-14.7%) of insomnia, 20.1% (95% CI 18.2-22.0%) of depression, and 15.0% (95% CI 13.3-16.7%) of anxiety symptoms. Female sex (odds ratio 2.4 [95% CI 1.3-4.6], p = 0.008) and age of 20-24 years (4.1 [1.5-10.9], p = 0.005) were associated factors for insomnia symptoms. Evening chronotype was a significant contributing factor for insomnia (6.7 [2.0-22.6], p = 0.002), depression (5.7 [2.2-15.1], p < 0.001), and anxiety (7.4 [2.3-23.2], p < 0.001) symptoms.

Conclusions: Disruptions were reported in the sleep and mental health of elite athletes during the preparation phase of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. Evening chronotype may be a potential independent predictor of sleep and mental health changes for Chinese winter sport elite athletes in preparatory period, and further research is needed to generalize the results. These findings suggest that strategies to manage sleep and mental health better are critical.