Minimum number of nights for reliable estimation of habitual sleep using a consumer sleep tracker

TeYang Lau; Ju Lynn Ong; Ben K L Ng; Lit Fai Chan; Daphne Koek; Chuen Seng Tan; Falk Müller-Riemenschneider; Karen Cheong; Stijn A A Massar; Michael W L Chee

doi:10.1093/sleepadvances/zpac026

Minimum number of nights for reliable estimation of habitual sleep using a consumer sleep tracker

Sleep Adv. 2022 Aug 31;3(1):zpac026. doi: 10.1093/sleepadvances/zpac026. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Sleep and Cognition, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, 12 Science Drive 2, Singapore 117549, Singapore.
² Health Promotion Board, 3 Second Hospital Ave, Singapore 168937, Singapore.
³ Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore, 12 Science Drive 2, Singapore 117549, Singapore.
⁴ Berlin Institute of Health, Charite University Medical Centre, Berlin, Germany.

Abstract

Study objectives: To determine the minimum number of nights required to reliably estimate weekly and monthly mean sleep duration and sleep variability measures from a consumer sleep technology (CST) device (Fitbit).

Methods: Data comprised 107 144 nights from 1041 working adults aged 21-40 years. Intraclass correlation (ICC) analyses were conducted on both weekly and monthly time windows to determine the number of nights required to achieve ICC values of 0.60 and 0.80, corresponding to "good" and "very good" reliability thresholds. These minimum numbers were then validated on data collected 1-month and 1-year later.

Results: Minimally, 3 and 5 nights were required to obtain "good" and "very good" mean weekly total sleep time (TST) estimates, while 5 and 10 nights were required for monthly TST estimates. For weekday-only estimates, 2 and 3 nights were sufficient for weekly time windows while 3 and 7 nights sufficed for monthly time windows. Weekend-only estimates of monthly TST required 3 and 5 nights. TST variability required 5 and 6 nights for weekly time windows, and 11 and 18 nights for monthly time windows. Weekday-only weekly variability required 4 nights for both "good" and "very good" estimates while monthly variability required 9 and 14 nights. Weekend-only estimates of monthly variability required 5 and 7 nights. Error estimates made using data collected 1-month and 1-year later with these parameters were comparable to those associated with the original dataset.

Conclusions: Studies should consider the metric, measurement window of interest, and desired reliability threshold to decide on the minimum number of nights required to assess habitual sleep using CST devices.

Keywords: consumer sleep technologies; reliability; sleep duration; sleep variability.