Association of sleep duration and quality with immunological response after vaccination against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 infection

Growing evidence suggests that sleep could affect the immunological response after vaccination. The aim of this prospective study was to investigate possible associations between regular sleep disruption and immunity response after vaccination against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In total, 592 healthcare workers, with no previous history of COVID-19, from eight major Greek hospitals were enrolled in this study. All subjects underwent two Pfizer–BioNTech messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) COVID-19 vaccine BNT162b2 inoculations with an interval of 21 days between the doses. Furthermore, a questionnaire was completed 2 days after each vaccination and clinical characteristics, demographics, sleep duration, and habits were recorded. Blood samples were collected and anti-spike immunoglobulin G antibodies were measured at 20 ± 1 days after the first dose and 21 ± 2 days after the second dose. A total of 544 subjects (30% males), with median (interquartile range [IQR]) age of 46 (38–54) years and body mass index of 24·84 (22.6–28.51) kg/m² were eligible for the study. The median (IQR) habitual duration of sleep was 6 (6–7) h/night. In all, 283 participants (52%) had a short daytime nap. In 214 (39.3%) participants the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index score was >5, with a higher percentage in women (74·3%, p < 0.05). Antibody levels were associated with age (r = −0.178, p < 0.001), poor sleep quality (r = −0.094, p < 0.05), insomnia (r = −0.098, p < 0.05), and nap frequency per week (r = −0.098, p < 0.05), but after adjusting for confounders, only insomnia, gender, and age were independent determinants of antibody levels. It is important to emphasise that insomnia is associated with lower antibody levels against COVID-19 after vaccination.