Assessing the Feasibility of Replacing Subjective Questionnaire-Based Sleep Measurement with an Objective Approach...

Area of Science:

• Sleep Medicine
• Wearable Technology

Background:

• Healthy sleep is crucial for human recovery, necessitating early intervention for sleep disorders.
• Sleep diaries are standard for diagnosis and monitoring but have user-related drawbacks.
• Automated sleep monitoring via smartwatches offers increased comfort and data integrity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the feasibility of replacing traditional sleep diaries with smartwatch objective measurements.
• To compare smartwatch-based sleep metrics against subjective sleep diary data.
• To assess the accuracy of smartwatches for key sleep parameters: sleep onset, wake time, total sleep time, and sleep efficiency.

Main Methods:

• A field study involving 166 overnight recordings was conducted.
• Objective sleep data was collected using a Samsung Galaxy Watch 4.
• Subjective data was gathered via a standard sleep diary.
• Four sleep characteristics were compared: sleep onset time, wake time, total sleep time (TST), and sleep efficiency (SE).

Main Results:

• Smartwatches demonstrated potential for replacing sleep diaries in determining sleep onset and wake times, albeit with some inaccuracy.
• Substitution was also feasible for sleep efficiency (SE) measurement.
• Significant discrepancies were observed in some individual recordings.
• Current smartwatch TST measurements do not support substitution for sleep diaries.

Conclusions:

• Smartwatch use for sleep monitoring is viable for specific parameters like sleep onset, wake time, and SE, depending on acceptable accuracy levels.
• A proposed 'similarity level' framework aids in determining the suitability of smartwatch substitution based on individual accuracy needs.
• Further research is needed to improve TST measurement accuracy for smartwatch-based sleep monitoring.