Wearable-derived Sleep Measurements are Associated with Long-COVID in the RECOVER Adult Cohort.
Wearables yield a wide array of sleep-related measures that are relevant to Long COVID. We leveraged wearables-derived sleep measures (WDSM) to identify differences between individuals with Long COVID (LC) versus individuals with possible or no LC in the RECOVER adult cohort. We found significant associations between LC and reduced heart rate variability measured during sleep and increased nightly variability in sleep duration after adjusting for confounders. Moreover, LC was independently associated with lower sleep efficiency, greater variability of nighttime sleep timing, higher resting heart rate, lower respiratory rate during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, prolonged REM sleep onset latency, worse global physical and mental health. Cluster analysis identified distinct multidimensional patterns of WDSM that are associated with LC and quality of life. Together, the strong association between WDSM, or WDSM clusters, with LC provides a potential biomarker for future validation efforts to detect LC and monitor treatment effectiveness.
