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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Health Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1418602

Cognition and objective sleep quality in post-COVID-19 patients

Provisionally accepted
Anna Carnes-Vendrell Anna Carnes-Vendrell 1Gerard Piñol-Ripoll Gerard Piñol-Ripoll 1*Adriano Targa Adriano Targa 2Nuria Tahan Nuria Tahan 1Mar Ariza Mar Ariza 3Neus Cano Marco Neus Cano Marco 3Barbara Segura Barbara Segura 4Carme Junque Carme Junque 4Javier Béjar Javier Béjar 5Cristian Barrue Cristian Barrue 5Nautilus Project Collaborative Group Nautilus Project Collaborative Group 3Maite Garolera Maite Garolera 3
  • 1 Hospital Universitari de Santa Maria, Lleida, Spain
  • 2 Lleida Institute for Biomedical Research (IRBLleida), Lleida, Catalonia, Spain
  • 3 Terrassa Health Consortium, Terrassa, Spain
  • 4 University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
  • 5 Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    In the current study, we aimed i) to evaluate sleep quality via wrist actigraphy monitoring of nonhospitalized and hospitalized post-COVID-19 condition (PCC) participants; ii) to correlate actigraphy measures with subjective measures of sleep quality, such as the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI); and iii) to investigate whether total sleep time or sleep efficiency could affect PCC cognitive performance. We included 49 individuals with PCC from the NAUTILUS Project (NCT05307549 and NCT05307575) who were monitored for one week via actigraphy and who were also assessed with a comprehensive neuropsychological battery and the PSQI. We found that there were significant differences between nonhospitalized PCCs and hospitalized PCCs in the number of awakenings. We also found a correlation between the total sleep time of both measures (actigraphy and PSQI), but we did not observe correlations between objective and subjective parameters of latency and sleep efficiency. Regarding cognition and actigraphy measures, there was a trend of statistical significance in the performance of immediate visual memory, attention span and social cognition according to sleep efficiency. In conclusion, results indicate that although the PSQI provides clinically relevant indicators of sleep, there are divergent results between self-reported and objective sleep measures (actigraphy). Furthermore, we found a tendency towards statistical significance in cognitive performance in PCC participants according to their sleep efficiency which could indicate that is more important for cognitive function of post-COVID-19 patients than total sleep time.

    Keywords: Actigraphy, Cognition, Post-COVID-19 Condition, Sleep efficiency, sleep quality, Total sleep time

    Received: 16 Apr 2024; Accepted: 21 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Carnes-Vendrell, Piñol-Ripoll, Targa, Tahan, Ariza, Cano Marco, Segura, Junque, Béjar, Barrue, Collaborative Group and Garolera. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Gerard Piñol-Ripoll, Hospital Universitari de Santa Maria, Lleida, Spain

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.