Response to “Sleep Patterns During Pre-Competition Training Phase: A Comparison Between Male and Female Collegiate Swimmers” [Letter]

Dear editor

We have looked at the article entitled “Sleep Patterns During Pre-Competition Training Phase: A Comparison Between Male and Female Collegiate Swimmers”. This research has many advantages, namely: 1) it is a pioneering study that simultaneously compares the sleep patterns of male and female swimming athletes subjectively and objectively; 2) shows the differences in sleep patterns of male and female swimming athletes in terms of quantity and quality; 3) using actigraphy to measure objective sleep, overcoming the information bias associated with subjective sleep measurements; 4) highlight that collegiate swimming athletes have less than optimal sleep quality during the pre-competition preparation phase; 5) provide more specific insight into sleep differences between male and female athletes; 6) emphasizes the importance of a personalized approach in athlete sleep management to improve sleep health and overall athlete performance.¹

We also believe in the accuracy of the analysis results in this study, but we found incompleteness in the presentation of the Fisher’s exact test results in Table 3. As readers, we feel we are missing important information that we really need. The basis of the Fisher’s exact test is a 2 × 2 contingency table.² In this case, sex is a row element with 2 categories, namely male and female; while difficulty sleeping is a column element with 2 categoriesfor example, categories A and B. Unfortunately, in presenting the analysis results in Table 3, researchers still present difficulty sleeping in 4 categories, namely none, mild, moderate and severe.¹ Of course, before carrying out the Fisher’s exact test, the researcher had reduced the four categories to just two categories so that this analysis could be carried out. Information about the results of this category reduction is very important for us and of course also for researchers in general, because it can be a very valuable reference for similar studies.

Therefore, we ask that the editor give the researcher the opportunity to respond to this letter by presenting a 2 × 2 contingency table resulting from category reduction, so that other researchers in related fields of science can use it as a valuable reference for similar research in the future.