sjl: Compute MCTQ social jetlag

Description

sjl() computes the relative or absolute social jetlag for standard, micro, and shift versions of the Munich ChronoType Questionnaire (MCTQ).

sjl_rel() is just a wrapper for sjl() with abs = FALSE.

Usage

sjl(msw, msf, abs = TRUE, method = "shorter")
sjl_rel(msw, msf, method = "shorter")

Value

If abs = TRUE, a Duration object corresponding to the absolute social jetlag.
If abs = FALSE, a Duration object corresponding to the relative social jetlag.

The output may also vary depending on the method used.

Arguments

msw: An hms object corresponding to the local time of mid-sleep on workdays from a standard, micro, or shift version of the MCTQ questionnaire. You can use msl() to compute it.
msf: An hms object corresponding to the local time of mid-sleep on work-free days from a standard, micro, or shift version of the MCTQ questionnaire. You can use msl() to compute it.
abs: (optional) a logical object indicating if the function must return an absolute value (default: TRUE).
method: (optional) a string indicating which method the function must use to compute the social jetlag. See the Methods section to learn more (default: "shorter").

Guidelines

Roenneberg, Allebrandt, Merrow, & Vetter (2012), Juda, Vetter, & Roenneberg (2013), and The Worldwide Experimental Platform (n.d.) guidelines for sjl() ($SJL_{rel}$ and $SJL$) computation are as follows.

Notes

For MCTQ$^{Shift}$, the computation below must be applied to each shift section of the questionnaire.
Due to time arithmetic issues, sjl() does a slightly different computation by default than those proposed by the authors mentioned above. See vignette("sjl-computation", package = "mctq") for more details.
If you are visualizing this documentation in plain text, you may have some trouble understanding the equations. You can see this documentation on the package website.

For standard and micro versions of the MCTQ

$$SJL_{rel} = MSF - MSW$$ $$SJL = | MSF - MSW |$$

Where:

$SJL_{rel}$ = Relative social jetlag.
$SJL$ = Absolute social jetlag.
$MSW$ = Local time of mid-sleep on workdays.
$MSF$ = Local time of mid-sleep on work-free days.

* $W$ = Workdays; $F$ = Work-free days.

For the shift version of the MCTQ

$$SJL_{rel}^{M/E/N} = MSF^{M/E/N} - MSW^{M/E/N}$$ $$SJL^{M/E/N} = | MSF^{M/E/N} - MSW^{M/E/N} |$$

Where:

$SJL_{rel}^{M/E/N}$ = Relative social jetlag in a particular shift.
$SJL^{M/E/N}$ = Absolute social jetlag in a particular shift.
$MSW^{M/E/N}$ = Local time of mid-sleep between two days in a particular shift.
$MSF^{M/E/N}$ = Local time of mid-sleep between two free days after a particular shift.

* $W$ = Workdays; $F$ = Work-free days, $M$ = Morning shift; $E$ = Evening shift; $N$ = Night shift.

Methods for computing the social jetlag

There are different approaches to compute the social jetlag ($SJL$). By default, sjl() uses an approach that we call "the shorter interval approach" ("shorter").

The topics below provide a simple explanation of each method supported by sjl(). To get a detail understating of this methods, see vignette("sjl-computation", package = "mctq").

"difference"

By using method = "difference", sjl() will do the exact computation proposed by the MCTQ authors, i.e., $SJL$ will be computed as the linear difference between $MSF$ and $MSW$ (see the Guidelines section).

We do not recommend using this method, as it has many limitations.

"shorter"

This is the default method for sjl(). It's based on the shorter interval between $MSW$ and $MSF$, solving most of the issues relating to $SJL$ computation.

"longer"

The "longer" method uses the same logic of the "shorter" method, but, instead of using the shorter interval between $MSW$ and $MSF$, it uses the longer interval between the two, considering a two-day window.

This method may help in special contexts, like when dealing with shift-workers that have a greater than 12 hours distance between their mid-sleep hours.

Details

Standard MCTQ functions were created following the guidelines in Roenneberg, Wirz-Justice, & Merrow (2003), Roenneberg, Allebrandt, Merrow, & Vetter (2012), and from The Worldwide Experimental Platform (theWeP, n.d.).

$\mu$MCTQ functions were created following the guidelines in Ghotbi et al. (2020), in addition to the guidelines used for the standard MCTQ.

MCTQ$^{Shift}$ functions were created following the guidelines in Juda, Vetter, & Roenneberg (2013), in addition to the guidelines used for the standard MCTQ.

See the References section to learn more.

Class requirements

The mctq package works with a set of object classes specially created to hold time values. These classes can be found in the lubridate and hms packages. Please refer to those package documentations to learn more about them.

Rounding and fractional time

Some operations may produce an output with fractional time (e.g., "19538.3828571429s (~5.43 hours)", 01:15:44.505). If you want, you can round it with round_time().

Our recommendation is to avoid rounding, but, if you do, make sure that you only round your values after all computations are done. That way you avoid round-off errors.

References

Ghotbi, N., Pilz, L. K., Winnebeck, E. C., Vetter, C., Zerbini, G., Lenssen, D., Frighetto, G., Salamanca, M., Costa, R., Montagnese, S., & Roenneberg, T. (2020). The $\mu$MCTQ: an ultra-short version of the Munich ChronoType Questionnaire. Journal of Biological Rhythms, 35(1), 98-110. tools:::Rd_expr_doi("10.1177/0748730419886986")

Jankowski K. S. (2017). Social jet lag: sleep-corrected formula. Chronobiology International, 34(4), 531-535. tools:::Rd_expr_doi("10.1080/07420528.2017.1299162")

Juda, M., Vetter, C., & Roenneberg, T. (2013). The Munich ChronoType Questionnaire for shift-workers (MCTQ$^{Shift}$). Journal of Biological Rhythms, 28(2), 130-140. tools:::Rd_expr_doi("10.1177/0748730412475041")

Roenneberg T., Allebrandt K. V., Merrow M., & Vetter C. (2012). Social jetlag and obesity. Current Biology, 22(10), 939-43. tools:::Rd_expr_doi("10.1016/j.cub.2012.03.038")

Roenneberg, T., Pilz, L. K., Zerbini, G., & Winnebeck, E. C. (2019). Chronotype and social jetlag: a (self-) critical review. Biology, 8(3), 54. tools:::Rd_expr_doi("10.3390/biology8030054")

Roenneberg, T., Wirz-Justice, A., & Merrow, M. (2003). Life between clocks: daily temporal patterns of human chronotypes. Journal of Biological Rhythms, 18(1), 80-90. tools:::Rd_expr_doi("10.1177/0748730402239679")

The Worldwide Experimental Platform (n.d.). MCTQ. https://www.thewep.org/documentations/mctq/

Examples

Run this code

## Scalar example

msw <- hms::parse_hm("03:30")
msf <- hms::parse_hm("05:00")

sjl(msw, msf)
#> [1] "5400s (~1.5 hours)" # Expected
sjl(msw, msf, abs = FALSE)
#> [1] "5400s (~1.5 hours)" # Expected
sjl_rel(msw, msf) # Wrapper function
#> [1] "5400s (~1.5 hours)" # Expected

msw <- hms::parse_hm("04:30")
msf <- hms::parse_hm("23:30")

sjl(msw, msf)
#> [1] "18000s (~5 hours)" # Expected
sjl(msw, msf, abs = FALSE)
#> [1] "18000s (~-5 hours)" # Expected
sjl_rel(msw, msf) # Wrapper function
#> [1] "18000s (~-5 hours)" # Expected

msw <- hms::as_hms(NA)
msf <- hms::parse_hm("05:15")

sjl(msw, msf)
#> [1] NA # Expected

## Vector example

msw <- c(hms::parse_hm("02:05"), hms::parse_hm("04:05"))
msf <- c(hms::parse_hm("23:05"), hms::parse_hm("04:05"))

sjl(msw, msf)
#> [1] "10800s (~3 hours)" "0s" # Expected
sjl(msw, msf, abs = FALSE)
#> [1] "-10800s (~-3 hours)" "0s" # Expected
sjl_rel(msw, msf) # Wrapper function
#> [1] "-10800s (~-3 hours)" "0s" # Expected

## Using different methods

msw <- hms::parse_hm("19:15")
msf <- hms::parse_hm("02:30")

sjl(msw, msf, abs = FALSE, method = "difference")
#> [1] "-60300s (~-16.75 hours)" # Expected
sjl(msw, msf, abs = FALSE, method = "shorter") # Default method
#> [1] "26100s (~7.25 hours)" # Expected
sjl(msw, msf, abs = FALSE, method = "longer")
#> [1] "-60300s (~-16.75 hours)" # Expected

msw <- hms::parse_hm("02:45")
msf <- hms::parse_hm("04:15")

sjl(msw, msf, abs = FALSE, method = "difference")
#> [1] "5400s (~1.5 hours)" # Expected
sjl(msw, msf, abs = FALSE, method = "shorter") # Default method
#> [1] "5400s (~1.5 hours)" # Expected
sjl(msw, msf, abs = FALSE, method = "longer")
#> [1] "-81000s (~-22.5 hours)" # Expected

## Converting the output to 'hms'

msw <- hms::parse_hm("01:15")
msf <- hms::parse_hm("03:25")
sjl(msw, msf)
#> [1] "7800s (~2.17 hours)" # Expected

hms::as_hms(as.numeric(sjl(msw, msf)))
#> 02:10:00 # Expected

## Rounding the output at the seconds level

msw <- hms::parse_hms("04:19:33.1234")
msf <- hms::parse_hms("02:55:05")
sjl(msw, msf)
#> [1] "5068.12339997292s (~1.41 hours)" # Expected

round_time(sjl(msw, msf))
#> [1] "5068s (~1.41 hours)" # Expected

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