Our study provided a comprehensive description of sleep health during the lockdown in Italy. The majority of respondents (approximately 60%) declared a negative impact of the restraining measure and delayed bedtime and wake-up time. We highlighted an alarming prevalence of poor sleepers and clinical insomniacs within our large sample: most of the participants were poor sleepers and presented insomnia symptoms from subthreshold to severe. In line with the current literature[4, 16, 21, 22], we demonstrated a strong relationship between sleep variables and depression, stress, and anxiety. We confirmed the results of other cross-sectional investigations on healthcare workers[19, 20] and women[14–18], which appeared as the categories experiencing the most severe sleep problems during lockdown worldwide. Furthermore, advanced age predicted more severe sleep disturbances. An interpretation of the healthcare workers' results is related to the well-known increased stressful workload, accompanied by higher contagion risk. Consistently, several studies demonstrated a high prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and mental health problems among the healthcare operators during the COVID-19 pandemic[20, 39]. On the other hand, we suggest caution in the interpretation of the results on women and elderly population since these two factors were typically associated with the poorest sleep quality[40, 41] and the higher predisposition to insomnia conditions even in the pre-outbreak period[42, 43]. Consistently, our recent longitudinal study[44] showed that the time course of sleep disturbance was different between men and women, and the male gender appeared as the most vulnerable to the prolongation of the restraining measures.
We highlighted more severe sleep disturbances in southern Italy, and this result is inconsistent with the available literature on sleep and COVID-19 in the Italian population[17], which identified a higher prevalence of sleep problems in northern Italy. However, differences in the period under consideration might explain the different results. The previous investigation[17] was referred to the first weeks of the outbreak, when the geographic propagation of the contagion in Italy was extremely unbalanced towards northern regions[45]. Our study covered the entire confinement period instead, providing a more reliable overview of the effect of the pandemic propagation in southern Italy. Moreover, we hypothesize that our results could also reflect the pandemic's economic consequences since southern Italy was the territorial area most affected economically by the COVID-19 crisis[46]. Finally, the confinement duration was a predictive factor of sleep disturbances, corroborating the hypothesis of a cumulative detrimental effect of the protracted lockdown period. However, scarce evidence had been provided worldwide, with only a few studies addressing this question through longitudinal investigations across the confinement period[5, 44, 47].
As far as the influence of chronotypes is concerned, according to the initial hypothesis, ET respondents reported the most prevalent delay of the sleep phase. These results are consistent with another Italian cross-sectional study carried out during the lockdown[48]. However, the ET participants reported suffering more from the confinement situation than the other circadian typologies. Coherently, this group showed the lowest sleep quality and the highest level of insomnia, depression, perceived stress, and anxiety. Meanwhile, MT showed the opposite pattern of results, declaring a lower negative impact of the restraining measures and a higher prevalence of preserved sleep schedule. This finding was exemplified by the highest sleep quality, less marked insomnia and depression symptoms, and the lowest perceived stress and anxiety levels.
The present results pointed to a particular vulnerability of the ET group, although the lockdown was a favourable period to reduce the mismatch between internal and social clocks. Of note, the present results are consistent with those obtained during the pandemic period in an adolescent clinical population[49].
Our findings suggest that the well-known higher predisposition to sleep disturbances of the ET people[29–31] should not be considered only as a consequence of the accumulated sleep debt due to social and working obligations. In fact, during an unprecedented period that unlocked time for sleep[27], the ET respondents paradoxically reported the longest sleep time, however preserving the more severe sleep problems. This evidence suggests that the evening-individuals' sleep disturbances may instead originate from the misalignment of the delayed sleep pattern to the biological night[50].
On the other hand, the morning circadian preference emerged as a protective factor, both on the sleep and psychological sides. Recent studies demonstrated that the three chronotype groups differ for resilience level[51–53] and perceived stress[54]. The morning chronotype seems to be more able to cope with challenging situations, while ET individuals are more predisposed to develop PTSD[55, 56]. Our results confirm this assumption, even in a context of reduced social jetlag, such as during the lockdown.
As expected, a substantial percentage of participants suspended the working activity during the lockdown (38.9%), leading to a lower sleep quality and more severe insomnia symptoms. We believe that these findings can be ascribable to the economic repercussions of the work interruption, although this dimension was not assessed in the present study. However, the possibility of maintaining a regular working activity during the confinement could have had a direct positive impact on preserving sleep health. The absence of a daily activity routine could emphasize the sense of boredom, leading to a slowing of the felt pace of the time flow[57]. Consistently, a recent study demonstrated a relationship between the increase of sleep difficulties and the feeling of time dilatation during the lockdown period[21]. Coherently, in our study, the unemployed participants were the only group that did not differ from the healthcare workers for sleep disturbances.
On the other hand, within the group of respondents that continued to work, home working seemed to be a protective factor. During this particular historical period, working from home was strictly associated with a reduced likelihood of contagion, and thus to a lower perception of risk. Moreover, the higher flexibility of the working schedule could encourage a better organization of the sleep/wake rhythms, favouring longer sleep duration. Consistently, the home workers slept almost half an hour more than those who continued to reach the workplace.
The changes in daily working time emerged as an essential predictor of sleep disturbances, and the increased work hours were associated with significant sleep problems. This result is consistent with other studies showing an adverse effect of the increased work routine on sleep quality and quantity[58, 59]. Interestingly, when working time was reduced, there was no benefit of home working. On the other hand, when the working schedule was maintained or increased, participants who worked remotely showed better sleep quality and fewer insomnia symptoms. However, when the home workers increased their daily working time, they reached the sleep disturbance level of the regular workers who maintained/reduced the working hours. Therefore, working remotely during the current pandemic should be encouraged as a protective factor, focusing on avoiding extra working time. When the regular working day is not punctuated by fixed starting and ending time point, a common consequence could be the increase of daily working duration, with negative consequences on sleep.
To the best of our knowledge, the present is the most extensive investigation aimed at understanding the pandemic-related consequences on the general population's sleep. However, it should be acknowledged that we used a non-probabilistic sampling technique, with a higher representativity of the female gender and the young population.
The results confirmed the hypothesis that the lockdown due to the COVID-19 outbreak had significant repercussions on the sleep quality of the general population[3].
The restraining measures had a cumulative cost, and our results confirm the need to avoid over precautionary approaches, keeping the home confinement period as short as possible to limit its long-term negative consequences for sleep and mental health[60].
Our results are consistent with the current literature suggesting a higher predisposition of the female gender to develop sleep problems. In addition, the healthcare workers emerged again as an at-risk category. Moreover, our results showed that the differences in individual daily activity pattern preferences could represent a crucial predictor of sleep and psychological health during the pandemic period. We demonstrated a particular vulnerability of the ET people, while the circadian morning preference seems to be a protective factor during the current challenging period.
In light of this evidence, the vulnerable categories should be placed at the center of preventive interventions to avoid the exacerbation of sleep disturbances and mental health problems in the long run. Chronobiological interventions, such as melatonin, light exposure, and social rhythm regulation, could be effective strategies for ET people to hinder the onset or exacerbation of depression symptoms during the period of restraining measures[28].
In conclusion, we propose some guidelines for working during the COVID-19 pandemic. Individuals who suspended the working activity should maintain a regular daily activity to counteract the development and exacerbation of sleep disturbances. Home working should be encouraged, as long as the overall daily activity duration does not increase, establishing fixed starting and ending times of the workday. This aspect should be regulated since home working and teleworking could become increasingly widespread modalities regardless of the pandemic's conclusion[61]. In this view, the results of the present investigation could be generalizable to non-emergency periods. Furthermore, the subjects who work in telematic modality should avoid exposure to backlit screens of electronic devices before falling asleep since the increased evening exposure was suggested as a causal factor in developing sleep disturbances during lockdown[5].
An adequate sleep quality/quantity is essential to deal with stressful events[62] and preserve mental health[63], emotional regulation[64, 65], as well as the proper functioning of the immune system[66]. Consequently, the present results have a broad-spectrum of implications.
Our study's findings could be essential in the present period, where the second wave has become a reality, and hundreds of thousands of people are subjected to restraining measures worldwide. All the insights provided in this study should be considered from the institutions to design public campaigns aimed to promote sleep health and general well-being during the current unprecedented situation.