Don't worry, sleep well: predictors of sleep loss over worry

Abstract

declare that they have no conflict of interest. AbstractIn this study, our aim was to explore the relationship between sleep quality/quantity, chronotype, pre-sleep arousal, arousability, stress, coping, neuroticism, extraversion, mood/affect, perceived health and sleep loss due to worry in college students. A total of 713 students (mean age=19.29±1.256 years) completed a set of questionnaires that assessed sleep loss over worry (item from the General Health Questionnaire), other sleep-wake aspects (e.g., habitual sleep duration, sleep needs, sleep depth, subjective sleep quality, sleep latency, night awakenings, daytime sleepiness, sleep flexibility, sleep reactivity to stress), pre-sleep arousal (cognitive/somatic arousal), arousability, coping, neuroticism, extraversion, perceived physical/mental health, academic stress, and positive/negative affect. Sleep disturbance due to worry was reported by 40.6% of females and 19.2% of male students. It was significantly correlated with perceived health and the majority of sleep-wake variables. Almost all correlations between the psychological traits under study and sleep loss over worry were significant. Results from the stepwise regression analyses, however, showed that only cognitive arousal (β=.353; p<.001), perceived academic stress (β=.129; p<.01), arousability (β=.127; p<.01), worry tendency (β =.153; p<.001), gender (β =.118; p<.01), and perceived physical health (β=-.093; p<.01) were significant predictors of sleep loss over worry.Together, these variables accounted for 40.3% of the total variance in sleep disturbance due to worry. Our findings suggest that cognitive arousal, academic stress, arousability, tendency to worry, gender and perceived physical health may be important determinants of sleep loss over worry. These results may have important implications for prevention and intervention to improve sleep quality in young adults.

DSPS-4: a Brief Measure of Perceived Daytime Sleepiness

“…In insomnia, it is suggested that sleepiness propensity is not as relevant as sleepiness perception (Buysse et al, 2007;Faria et al, 2014;Marques, Gomes, Ferreira, & Azevedo, 2016;Pilcher et al 2000;Young, 2004). Thus, the DSPS-4 constitutes a questionnaire aimed at measuring the sleepiness perception as a psychological trait and can constitute a complement to the ESS.…”

Pre-Sleep Arousal Scale (PSAS): psychometric study of a European Portuguese version

“…Concerning sleep-wake variables, the following indicators were used (cf. Marques, Gomes, Ferreira, & Azevedo, 2016):…”

Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Portuguese Version of the Arousal Predisposition Scale

“…In the current study, the Cronbach's alpha was .80. We used the European Portuguese version developed by Marques et al (2016c) which showed good psychometric indicators for a youngadult sample.…”

“…Specifically, regarding insomnia, one should note that arousability is a relevant construct in comprehensive models of insomnia such as the sleep-interfering and sleepinterpreting processes model (Lundh and Broman 2000). Several studies have consistently shown that arousability is a predictor of sleep disturbance/insomnia (Marques et al 2016c;Marques et al 2016a, b). In addition, previous research showed that arousability is intimately associated with sleep reactivity which in recent years demonstrated to be a relevant factor to insomnia's development and maintenance (Marques et al 2016d).…”