Sleepless: The Developmental Significance of Sleep Quality and Quantity among Adolescents

• Published in: Developmental psychology Vol. 57; no. 6; pp. 1018 - 1024
• Main Authors: Vazsonyi, Alexander T, Liu, Dan, Javakhishvili, Magda, Beier, Julia J, Blatny, Marek
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Psychological Association 01.06.2021
• Subjects: Academic Achievement; Adolescent Development; Anxiety; Bullying; Depression (Psychology); Early Adolescents; Foreign Countries; Health Behavior; Mental Health; Predictor Variables; Regression (Statistics); Self Esteem; Sleep; Czech Republic
• ISSN: 0012-1649
• DOI: 10.1037/dev0001192

The current study tested the developmental significance of both early adolescent sleep quantity and quality for academic competence and internalizing and externalizing problems over the course of 2 years. As part of an accelerated longitudinal study, data were collected from N = 586 Czech adolescents (M[subscript age] = 12.34 years, SD = 0.89, 58.4% female). Data analyses included a series of logistic regressions that controlled for adolescent sex, age, family structure, and socioeconomic status. Findings showed that sleep quality at Wave 1 predicted developmental changes 1 year later (Wave 3) in depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem (OR[subscript range] = 1.7-1.8) and 2 years later (Wave 5) in externalizing behaviors (OR = 2.6). Importantly, despite the associations observed with Wave 3 anxiety and deviance, Wave 1 sleep quantity was unrelated to subsequent developmental changes in adjustment measures, both 1 and 2 years later. No sleep effects at all were observed on a variety of measures of academic competence. Study findings underscore the developmental significance of sleep and indicate greater salience of sleep quality vis-à-vis sleep quantity. They also replicate some of the observed relationships found in previous longitudinal work on the sleep-mood link but extend the sleep-adolescent adjustment literature in a number of important ways.