Social Jetlag Changes During the COVID-19 Pandemic as a Predictor of Insomnia – A Multi-National Survey Study

Luiz Eduardo Mateus Brandão,1 Teemu Martikainen,1 Ilona Merikanto,2– 4 Brigitte Holzinger,5,6 Charles M Morin,7– 9 Colin A Espie,10,11 Courtney J Bolstad,12 Damien Leger,13 Frances Chung,14 Giuseppe Plazzi,15 Yves Dauvilliers,16 Kentaro Matsui,17,18 Luigi De Gennaro,19– 21 Mariusz Sieminski,22 Michael R Nadorff,12,23 Ngan Yin Chan,24 Yun Kwok Wing,24 Sérgio Arthuro Mota-Rolim,25– 27 Yuichi Inoue,28 Markku Partinen,29,30 Christian Benedict,31 Bjorn Bjorvatn,32,33 Jonathan Cedernaes1,34 1Department of Medical Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden; 2Department of Public Health Solutions, Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland; 3Department of Psychology and Logopedics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland; 4Orton Orthopaedic Hospital, Helsinki, Finland; 5ZK-Schlafcoaching, Medical University Vienna, Vienna, Austria; 6Institute for Consciousness and Dream Research, Vienna, Austria; 7École de Psychologie, Université Laval, Québec, Canada; 8Centre d’étude des troubles du sommeil, Université Laval, Québec, Canada; 9Centre de recherche CERVO/Brain Research Center, Université Laval, Québec, Canada; 10Sleep & Circadian Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK; 11Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK; 12Department of Psychology, Mississippi State University, Starkville, MS, USA; 13APHP, VIFASOM, Hôtel-Dieu, Centre du Sommeil et de la Vigilance, Université de Paris, Paris, France; 14Department of Anesthesia and Pain Medicine, Toronto Western Hospital, University Health Network, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; 15Department of Biomedical, Metabolic and Neural Science, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy; 16Sleep-Wake Disorders Center, Department of Neurology, Gui-de-Chauliac Hospital, Institute for Neurosciences of Montpellier INM, INSERM, University of Montpellier, Montpellier, France; 17National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry National Institute of Mental Health, Department of Clinical Laboratory and Department of Sleep-Wake Disorders, Tokyo, Japan; 18Tokyo Women’s Medical University, Department of Psychiatry, Tokyo, Japan; 19Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy; 20IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia, Rome, Italy; 21IRCCS Istituto delle Scienze Neurologiche di Bologna, Bologna, Italy; 22Department of Emergency Medicine, Medical University of Gdansk, Gdansk, Poland; 23Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA; 24Li Chiu Kong Family Sleep Assessment Unit, Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, People’s Republic of China; 25Brain Institute, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, RN, Brazil; 26Physiology and Behaviour Department, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, RN, Brazil; 27Onofre Lopes University Hospital, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, RN, Brazil; 28Department of Somnology, Tokyo Medical University, Tokyo, Japan; 29Helsinki Sleep Clinic, Vitalmed Research Center, Terveystalo Biobank and Research, Helsinki, Finland; 30Department of Neurosciences, Clinicum, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland; 31Sleep Science Laboratory, Department of Neuroscience, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden; 32Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway; 33Norwegian Competence Center for Sleep Disorders, Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway; 34Department of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Molecular Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USACorrespondence: Jonathan Cedernaes Email jonathan.cedernaes@medsci.uu.sePurpose: Lifestyle and work habits have been drastically altered by restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether the associated changes in sleep timing modulate the risk of suffering from symptoms of insomnia, the most prevalent sleep disorder, is however incompletely understood. Here, we evaluate the association between the early pandemic-associated change in 1) the magnitude of social jetlag (SJL) – ie, the difference between sleep timing on working vs free days – and 2) symptoms of insomnia.Patients and Methods: A total of 14,968 anonymous participants (mean age: 40 years; 64% females) responded to a standardized internet-based survey distributed across 14 countries. Using logistic multivariate regression, we examined the association between the degree of social jetlag and symptoms of insomnia, controlling for important confounders like social restriction extension, country specific COVID-19 severity and psychological distress, for example.Results: In response to the pandemic, participants reported later sleep timing, especially during workdays. Most participants (46%) exhibited a reduction in their SJL, whereas 20% increased it; and 34% reported no change in SJL. Notably, we found that both increased and decreased SJL, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, were associated with later sleep midpoint (indicating a later chronotype) as well as more recurrent and moderate-to-severe symptoms of insomnia (about 23– 54% higher odds ratio than subjects with unchanged SJL). Primarily those with reduced SJL shifted their bedtimes to a later timepoint, compared with those without changes in SJL.Conclusion: Our findings offer important insights into how self-reported changes to the stability of sleep/wake timing, as reflected by changes in SJL, can be a critical marker of the risk of experiencing insomnia-related symptoms – even when individuals manage to reduce their social jetlag. These findings emphasize the clinical importance of analyzing sleep-wake regularity.Keywords: BNSQ, ISI, midsleep, MSFsc, PHQ-4, psychological distress

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