Objectively measured sleep duration, sleep quality, and symptoms of psychopathology in the SIGMA cohort

Abstract

While subjective measures have demonstrated an association between sleep duration, sleep quality, and symptoms of psychopathology in adolescents, findings from more reliable, objective measures remain limited. In this study, we investigate if objectively measured sleep duration and sleep quality are associated with symptoms of psychopathology in adolescents.Adolescents (N=558; 11-17 y) from the SIGMA cohort wore the Fitbit Charge 2 measuring sleep duration and sleep quality during 4-6 days. Participants completed the Brief Symptom Inventory-53, assessing symptoms of general psychopathology, depression, anxiety, and psychoticism. Sleep duration was not associated with symptoms of general psychopathology, depression, anxiety, and psychoticism in general population adolescents. Further, sleep quality was not associated with symptom levels of anxiety, and psychoticism, but small to negligible positive associations were found between sleep quality and general psychopathology and depression symptoms.Our non-significant findings converge with those of an increasing body of objectively measured sleep literature that does no find significant associations between sleep duration, sleep quality and psychopathology symptoms. Overall, our results suggest that associations between sleep duration and psychopathology symptoms in previous studies may be a function of the subjective, self-report nature of the employed measures, and do not generalize to objectively collected sleep data.