Abstract

Abstract
Nikita Chicoine

After injury athletes self-report poor sleep and increased pain and anxiety
There is a reciprocal relationship between pain and sleep but there are only a few studies that measure the direct effect of pain on sleep. In addition, athletes often suffer from painful injuries but there is no information on how their pain affects their sleep and recovery. Finally, in naturally occurring pain conditions, the influence of anxiety is unclear. Therefore, the purpose of our study was to measure the influence of pain and anxiety on sleep in athletes. We used a one group, pre-post test design. Eleven collegiate athletes completed both the injured phase and healed phase (6 females and 5 males; height=175.2cm (10.3), mass=81.3kg (23.0) age= 21.0yrs (1.4)). We measured their function, pain, anxiety, subjective sleep measures, and actigraphy measures of sleep at both phases. Our athletes experienced a significant reduction in pain, and a significant improvement in function in the healed phase compared to the injured phase. In addition, anxiety improved from a medium level to a weak level. Moreover, our athletes had significant poorer self-report sleep quality during the injured phase compared to the healed phase. In conclusion, self-reported sleep was worse after suffering an injury compared to sleep during the healed phase but actigraphy measurements were not different between the two phases. It seems evident that our athletes’ sleep hygiene need to be improved to be able to further investigate the pain/sleep relationship in our athlete. Finally, according to our findings anxiety seems to be an important factor in athletes’ sleep but is rarely measured.