Spending Time With Family Predicts Sleep in Latinx Adolescents: Variation by Family Values and Dynamics

• In Event: Sleep in Adolescence: The Importance of Family and School Contexts

Abstract

Spending time with family members (“family connection”) is a salient aspect of adolescents’ daily lives that has been linked with healthy sleep (Tavernier et al., 2017). These interactions may be particularly salient in cultures that place high importance on family connectedness, such as Latinx communities (Hardway & Fuligni, 2006). The present study examined within- and between-person associations between parent and sibling connection and objective sleep (duration, efficiency) in a sample of Latinx adolescents. Further, we investigated adolescents’ self-reported familism values (i.e., loyalty, reciprocity, and solidarity among family members) and family communication (e.g., enjoyment of communication) as moderators. We hypothesized that greater family connection would be associated with longer sleep duration and more efficient sleep at the daily and average level (H1) and that these associations would be stronger among adolescents who reported higher familism values and more positive family communication (H2-H3). Participants were 195 Latinx adolescents (M age=18.11, 65.6% female; 85.6% Mexican descent) in their senior year of high school. Adolescents reported diverse immigrant generation status (65.1% second-generation) and parent education (56.9% attained a high school degree or less). Participants wore wrist-based accelerometers for 7 consecutive nights (M nights=6.61, SD=1.68) to obtain objective sleep duration (i.e., total time spent asleep) and sleep efficiency (i.e., proportion of time spent asleep). Family connection was measured via bedtime diary reports asking how much time adolescents spent connecting with parents/siblings on that day (M bedtime reports=6.39, SD=1.16). Familism values were measured using the Mexican American Cultural Values Scale (Knight et al., 2010) and family communication was assessed using the Family Communication Scale (Olson et al., 2004). Covariates were weekend vs. weekday, gender, immigrant generation, parent education, body mass index, summer participation, and anxiety and depressive symptoms. To assess daily and between-person associations, two-level multilevel models were fit in Mplus (Muthén & Muthén, 2017) using maximum likelihood estimation with robust standard errors to account for nested data (N=1,213 days). Adolescents slept longer on days that they spent more time with siblings, and adolescents who typically spent more time with parents had longer sleep duration on average (Table 1). Family communication moderated between-person associations between parent connection and sleep duration. Greater time spent with parents was associated with 22 more minutes of sleep for adolescents who reported higher family communication and 11 more sleep minutes for youth with average family communication, as compared to adolescents with lower communication (Figure 1). Greater average sibling connection was associated with lower sleep efficiency for youth high in familism-obligation, but associations were not significant for youth at average or low levels. Further, average sibling time was linked to shorter sleep for adolescents who reported lower family communication, but not for those with average or higher communication. Results highlight the importance of the role of family for Latinx adolescents’ sleep, while also identifying the unique effects of parent and sibling connection. Findings suggest that spending time with family may promote more healthful sleep for Latinx adolescents, and these effects may be strongest for families who have strengthened communications.

Authors

• Jeri Sasser, Arizona State University
  Presenting Author

• Emma Lecarie, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• HyeJung Park, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Leah D Doane, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author