Conhecimento e crenças sobre o sono e higiene do sono de atletas e comissão técnica: Jogos Paralímpicos de Tóquio 2020

Abstract

The aim of the study was to evaluate and compare the knowledge, beliefs about sleep and sleep hygiene of athletes and the coaching staff of the Brazilian team who participated in the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. The sample consisted of 112 Paralympic athletes and 8 guide athletes with mean age of 31.4±7 years, 61 men and 59 women, with motor, visual and intellectual disabilities, of these 38 were medalists and 82 were not medalists. 60 members of the technical committee also participated with a mean age of 41.4±9.8 years. Data collection took place remotely one week before the trip to the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. Technical committee members and Paralympic athletes were asked to answer the Sleep Belief Scale, a structured questionnaire, and Paralympic athletes answered the questionnaire. Athlete Sleep Behavior Questionnaire. For statistical comparison analysis, the Mann-Whitney U test was used, data normality was assessed with the Shapiro-Wilk test, and Pearson's chi-square test (X2) was used for comparisons of categorical variables. significance level adopted was p≤0.05. The knowledge of Paralympic athletes about sleep beliefs and sleep hygiene was worse when compared to the members of the coaching staff. In addition, the members of the technical committee showed significantly better knowledge for questions about what sleep hygiene is (41.7% vs. 9.2%) and its importance (51.7% vs. 25.8%), on what jet lag is (81.7% vs. 50%), on the influence of jet lag on psychological recovery (78.3% vs. 40.8%), physical (80% vs. 45.8 %) and on sports performance (88.3% vs. 49.2%) and on the influence of sleep on the onset of sports injuries (95% vs. 31.7%). Paralympic athletes' sleep was not monitored frequently and most of the monitoring performed is through simple questions during training. The main barrier pointed out by the Paralympic athletes was the lack of financial resources, on the other hand, the members of the technical committee reported that the main barrier to monitoring sleep was the lack of adherence and commitment of the athletes themselves. We conclude that knowledge about sleep beliefs and sleep hygiene was low among Paralympic athletes and coaching staff, and the sleep behaviors of the evaluated Paralympic athletes were poor. Educational development on sleep hygiene and the dissemination of relevant sleep information for both athletes and coaching staff are key to facilitating behavioral changes and directing coaching staff to available low-cost sleep monitoring tools.