Sleep Schedules and Daytime Functioning in Adolescents

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Sleep Schedules and Daytime Functioning in
Adolescents

• Amy R. Wolfson and Mary A. Carskadon
• Child Development, August 1998, Volume 69, Number
  4, Pages 875-887
• Casey Petek

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Hypothesis

• Assess the relation between adolescents sleep
  /wake habits and their daytime functioning.

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Dependent Variables

• Depressive mood
• Level of sleepiness
• Sleep / wake behavior problems
• Grades

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Independent Variables

• School-night total sleep time
• Weekend delay
• Weekend oversleep
• Sex

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Participants

• 3,120 high school students ages 13-19 at four
  public schools from three Rhode Island school
  districts

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• Theoretical Construct Sleep habits and day time
  functioning
• Operational Definition Sleep Habit Survey
• Was administered during homeroom
• Self-reported total sleep times on school nights
  and weekends over two weeks

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• In the first two sections MANOVA were used to
  examine age, sex, school, and grades in relation
  to the sleep /wake variables total sleep time,
  bedtime, rise time, weekend delay, and weekend
  oversleep

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• When significant multivariate effects were found,
  univariate effects were then examined using
  Bonferroni tests to determine significant group
  mean differences.

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Results

• Students with grades of Cs or below reported 25
  minutes less sleep on school nights and also went
  to bed 40 minutes later then students who
  received As and Bs
• Adolescents who were in the groups defined as
  less than adequate sleep habits reported
  increased behavioral difficulties in comparison
  to those defined as adequate sleepers. Students
  in the short total sleep group reported more
  sleep/wake behavior problems

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Results

• Students with short school-night sleep reported
  increased levels of depressed mood, daytime
  sleepiness, and problematic sleep behaviors in
  comparison to longer sleepers. Students with more
  irregular sleep schedules had more behavior
  problems.
• Females reported higher levels of depressed mood.
  Otherwise there were no sex differences

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Results
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Results
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Results
Reported School Night Total Sleep Time (hours)
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Discussion

• Most students do not get enough sleep. Optimal
  sleep is 9.2 hours. The median was 7.5 hours
• Poor sleep habits influence behavior and mood
• If adolescents got more sleep at night, they
  would experience fewer fluctuations in daily mood
  and less behavioral problems

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Problems

• Everything was self-report. The data could have
  been inaccurate and was only based on two weeks
• Students from all over the country should be
  included
• Amount of sleep isnt the best predictor of a
  persons grades