Does a self-reported sleep duration reflect actigraphy reported sleep duration in female football players?

Sleep is often compromised in female athletes and the monitoring of female athlete’s sleep is an important preventative and educational tool. With self-reporting of sleep common practice for athletes as part of a daily wellness assessment, there is a need to understand whether sleep indices are being reported accurately, and thus whether self-report data is useful. This study aimed to compare the agreement between self-reported and actigraphy reported sleep duration in female football players, with the intention of informing best practice for athlete monitoring. Twenty-two female footballers (mean age 19.5 ± 1.3 years) provided a daily self-report across 7 days, whilst also wearing an actigraph across the same testing period. Agreement between the two measures was assessed using Bland-Altman limits of agreement, with acceptable limits of agreement defined as < 30 minutes. Results showed evident disagreement between the two methods, with a mean bias of -0.54 (32 minutes, 95% CI -0.66 to -0.43) and a potential disagreement range of over two hours (Lower 95% limits of agreement -1.49 to upper 95% limits of agreement 0.40). Coaches using self reported sleep durations as a monitoring tool for female footballers should interpret the results with caution and be aware of the potential for inaccuracies in this measure. As such, where possible, coaches should consider other methods of sleep monitoring, rather than solely relying on a self-report, to ensure they are operating with optimal practice within situational constraints.