Variation in Sleep Traits in the Indian Population During Social Restriction

Aim: We conducted this study to investigate the impact of social restrictions on chronotype categories, social jetlag, and sleep parameters in the Indian population.

Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in 2021 with 139 participants. We used an online questionnaire (Google Form) enclosing respondents' sociodemographic information Social jetlag and sleep parameters were measured with the µ-MCTQ and chronotype was assessed by the r-MEQ. Chi-square, paired t-tests, and One-way ANOVA were used to analyse the data. Pearson correlation was used to determine the strength of the relationship between the variables.

Results: Our results highlighted that a total of 23.8% of volunteers reported social jetlag before social restriction and it significantly reduced to 13.7% (P = .001) in the social restricted condition. There is no significant difference in sleep duration during the workday and free days of socially restriction (P = .11). We found a difference between midsleep free day (MSf) and midsleep free day corrected (MSfsc) (mean of 13 min before restrictions (P = .05) and 10 min during restrictions; P = .001).

Conclusion: Our findings provide crucial insights into variations in sleep/wake schedule stability, as seen by changes in the decrease of social jetlag between restriction. It was established that the individuals had significantly equivalent total sleep at both time points, as well as a later sleep-wake time under the social restriction.