The fall of vulnerability to sleep disturbances in evening chronotypes when working from home and its implications for depression
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Abstract
Eveningness is distinctively associated with sleep disturbances and depression symptoms due to the misalignment between biological and social clocks. The widespread imposition of remote working due to the COVID-19 pandemic allowed a more flexible sleep schedule. This scenario could promote sleep and mental health in evening-type subjects. We investigated the effect of working from home on sleep quality/quantity and insomnia symptoms within the morningness-eveningness continuum, and its indirect repercussions on depressive symptomatology. A total of 610 Italian office workers (mean age ± standard deviation, 35.47 ± 10.17 years) and 265 remote workers (40.31 ± 10.69 years) participated in a web-based survey during the second contagion wave of COVID-19 (28 November–11 December 2020). We evaluated chronotype, sleep quality/duration, insomnia, and depression symptoms through validated questionnaires. Three moderated mediation models were performed on cross-sectional data, testing the mediation effect of sleep variables on the association between morningness-eveningness continuum and depression symptoms, with working modality (office vs. remote working) as moderator of the relationship between chronotype and sleep variables. Remote working was associated with delayed bedtime and get-up time. Working modality moderated the chronotype effect on sleep variables, as eveningness was related to worse sleep disturbances and shorter sleep duration among the office workers only. Working modality also moderated the mediation of sleep variables between chronotype and depression. The above mediation vanished among remote workers. The present study suggests that evening-type people did not show their characteristic vulnerability to sleep problems when working from home. This result could imply a reduction of the proposed sleep-driven predisposition to depression of late chronotypes. A working environment complying with individual circadian preferences might ensure an adequate sleep quantity/quality for the evening-type population, promoting their mental health.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2022.02.02.22270278: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics not detected. Sex as a biological variable Participants and procedure: Data reported in the present study are referred to the group of workers (N=875; mean age ± standard deviation, 36.93 ± 10.57 yrs; range, 20–76 yrs; 729 females) which belonged to an overall sample of 2013 Italian citizens participating in a web-based survey held during the second contagion wave of COVID-19 (28 November– 11 December 2020). Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results …SciScore for 10.1101/2022.02.02.22270278: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Ethics not detected. Sex as a biological variable Participants and procedure: Data reported in the present study are referred to the group of workers (N=875; mean age ± standard deviation, 36.93 ± 10.57 yrs; range, 20–76 yrs; 729 females) which belonged to an overall sample of 2013 Italian citizens participating in a web-based survey held during the second contagion wave of COVID-19 (28 November– 11 December 2020). Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Table 2: Resources
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).
Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.
Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.
Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.
Results from rtransparent:- Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
- No protocol registration statement was detected.
Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.
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