SynthesisFamily practice2021
The relationship between duration and quality of sleep and upper respiratory tract infections: a systematic review.
Synthesis in Family practice, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 36 citations in OpenAlex.
- Dental arch dimension and palatal morphology in children and adolescents with mouth breathing: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC oral health · 2026Pooled it
- Night-shift work and susceptibility to infectious diseases: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Scandinavian journal of work, environment & health · 2025Pooled it
- Family-Related Factors in Children and Adolescents With Chronic Pain: A Systematic Review.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2025Pooled it
- Epidemiology of sleep disturbances among medical students in the Middle East and North Africa: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of global health · 2025Pooled it
- Multidimensional Healthy Sleep Characteristics and Pneumonia Risk: A Large-scale, Population-based Prospective Cohort Study.Open forum infectious diseases · 2026Article
- The impact of sleep duration, sleep debt and insomnia symptoms on infection risk: a longitudinal cohort study with 1-year follow-up.Family practice · 2026Article
- Does influenza vaccination protect people with breakthrough infections from acute cardiovascular events?Euro surveillance : bulletin Europeen sur les maladies transmissibles = European communicable disease bulletin · 2026Article
- Risk of influenza and COVID-19 illness and pediatric obstructive sleep apnea: a TriNetX cohort with 5-year follow-up.Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine · 2026Article
- Health outcomes after national acute sleep deprivation events among the American public.JCI insight · 2026Article
- Article
- Lifestyle factors or protective behaviors: which are more strongly associated with upper respiratory tract infections after COVID-19? A cross-sectional study of 1,535 Chinese college students.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Bidirectional relationship between sleep problems and long COVID: a longitudinal analysis of data from the COVIDENCE UK study.BMJ open respiratory research · 2025Observational
- Associations Between Sleep Quality and Self-Reported Health Status in Middle-Aged and Older Adults: A Community-Based, Cross-Sectional Study in Northern Taiwan.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Individual associations of self-reported sleep duration, sleep quality, chronotype and social jet lag with infectious disease risk.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Article
- Systematic review of fluorescence-guided surgery in pituitary neuroendocrine tumours.Endocrine oncology (Bristol, England) · 2025Review
- Holistic care in mild upper respiratory tract infections (MURTIs): an approach to individualized care management.Drugs in context · 2025Review
- Indication for endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography and development of hemorrhage: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology · 2024Article
- The immunology of sickness metabolism.Cellular & molecular immunology · 2024Review
- Changes in sleep patterns in primary care workers during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022 in Shanghai: a cross-sectional study.Scientific reports · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundUpper respiratory tract infections (URTIs) are common, mostly self-limiting, but result in inappropriate antibiotic prescriptions. Poor sleep is cited as a factor predisposing to URTIs, but the evidence is unclear.
objectiveTo systematically review whether sleep duration and quality influence the frequency and duration of URTIs.
methodsThree databases and bibliographies of included papers were searched for studies assessing associations between sleep duration or quality and URTIs. We performed dual title and abstract selection, discussed full-text exclusion decisions and completed 50% of data extraction in duplicate. The Newcastle-Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale assessed study quality and we estimated odds ratios (ORs) using random effects meta-analysis.
resultsSearches identified 5146 papers. Eleven met inclusion criteria, with nine included in meta-analyses: four good, two fair and five poor for risk of bias. Compared to study defined 'normal' sleep duration, shorter sleep was associated with increased URTIs (OR: 1.30, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.19-1.42, I2: 11%, P < 0.001) and longer sleep was not significantly associated (OR: 1.11 95% CI: 0.99-1.23, I2: 0%, P = 0.070). Sensitivity analyses using a 7- to 9-hour baseline found that sleeping shorter than 7-9 hours was associated with increased URTIs (OR: 1.31, 95% CI: 1.22-1.41, I2: 0%, P < 0.001). Sleeping longer than 7-9 hours was non-significantly associated with increased URTIs (OR: 1.15, 95% CI: 1.00-1.33, I2: 0%, P = 0.050, respectively). We were unable to pool sleep quality studies. No studies reported on sleep duration and URTI severity or duration.
conclusionsReduced sleep, particularly shorter than 7-9 hours, is associated with increased URTIs. Strategies improving sleep should be explored to prevent URTIs.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.