The association between depressive symptoms and self-reported sleep difficulties among college students: Truth or reporting bias?

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 16; no. 2; p. e0246370
• Main Authors: Huang, Zhiyong, Kämpfen, Fabrice
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 19.02.2021; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Aging; Bias; Biology and Life Sciences; College students; Colleges & universities; Complications and side effects; Correlation analysis; Depression, Mental; Econometrics; Health aspects; Heterogeneity; Insomnia; Longitudinal studies; Medicine and Health Sciences; Mental depression; Mental health; Physical Sciences; Polls & surveys; Population studies; Psychological aspects; Questionnaires; Research and Analysis Methods; Retirement; Risk factors; Self evaluation; Sleep; Sleep and wakefulness; Sleep disorders; Sleepiness; Social Sciences; Young adults; United States; United States > US; China
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0246370

The strong association between self-reported sleep difficulties and depressive symptoms is well documented. However, individuals who suffer from depressive symptoms could potentially interpret the values attached to a subjective scale differently from others, making comparisons of sleep difficulties across individuals with different depressive symptoms problematic. The objective of this study is to determine the existence and magnitude of reporting heterogeneity in subjective assessment of sleep difficulties by those who have depressive symptoms. We implement an online survey using Visual Analogue Scales and anchoring vignettes to study the comparability of subjective assessments of sleep difficulties among college students in Switzerland ( N = 1, 813). Using multivariate linear regressions and double-index models, our analysis shows that reporting heterogeneity plays only a marginal role in moderating the association between sleep difficulties and depression, irrespective of the severity of the depressive symptoms of the individuals. This suggests that unadjusted comparisons of self-reported sleep difficulties between college students are meaningful, even among individuals with depressive symptoms.