Sex differences in subjective sleep quality, sleepiness, and health-related quality of life among collegiate soccer players

Sleep is an important recovery phase after exercise that should be taken into account by athletes. Females are likely to be dissatisfied with their sleep quality, report sleepiness and, consequently, experience impaired quality-of-life (QOL). However, limited data are available regarding sex differences in sleep quality, sleepiness, and QOL in athletes. Male and female collegiate soccer players were recruited. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) was used to assess subjective sleep quality and the Japanese Version of the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (JESS) was used to evaluate subjective sleepiness. Health-related QOL was evaluated through the short form (SF)-8. Logistic regression analyses were undertaken to assess associations between poor sleep quality (defined as PSQI ≥ 6), subjective sleepiness (defined as JESS ≥ 11), and poor QOL (defined as <median value). Overall, 64 male and 30 female soccer players were enrolled. Females had significantly lower BMIs and less years of soccer experience compared to males. Interestingly, females had shorter sleep duration by a half an hour compared to males. Females were more likely to have poor sleep quality than males (50.0 % in females and 17.2 % in males, P = 0.002). Females were also more likely to have subjective sleepiness than males (56.6 % in females and 34.4 % in males, P = 0.041). Finally, female gender was associated with low social functioning, mental health, and mental component summary scores of SF-8. We have shown that in collegiate soccer players, female players had poorer subjective sleep quality and more impaired health-related QOL compared to male players.