Parental Support Buffers the Impact of Daily Stress on Adolescent Sleep

• In Event: Poster Session 05
  In Poster Session: PS 05 Topic - Health, Growth, Injury

Abstract

Sleep problems increase during adolescence and have significant repercussions on adolescents’ cognitive functioning, behavioral adjustment and emotional well-being (Owens, 2014). In addition to understanding the effects of poor sleep on adolescent development, it is also important to understand determinants of sleep difficulties. In particular, the investigation of how daily stressors interfere with adolescent sleep is critical during this developmental period of increasing social demands and heightened sensitivity to the social environment (Steinberg & Morris, 2001). Moreover, few studies have explored factors that can buffer the negative impact of stress on adolescent sleep. In the current study, we examine (1) the impact of daily conflicts and demands from family and school on various dimensions of adolescent sleep (i.e., duration, efficiency, latency, nighttime awakenings) and (2) whether parental and peer support buffer these associations.
This study included 188 adolescents (Mage = 16.79 years, SD = 0.76; 74% females) from diverse ethnic backgrounds. Each morning for 14 consecutive days, adolescents responded to questions about their sleep the prior night: (1) “What time did you turn off the lights to go to sleep last night?” (2) “How long did it take you to fall asleep after turning the lights off?” (3) How many times did you wake up during the night?” and (4) “What time did you wake up and no longer sleep this morning?” Data from these self-reports provided estimates of several sleep indices: duration, efficiency (i.e., proportion of the night spent asleep, an indicator of sleep quality), latency (e.g., amount of time it takes fall asleep) and number of nighttime awakenings. These sleep indices were averaged across the two weeks. Additionally, adolescents completed a daily checklist each evening to indicate family and school stressors as assessed by family conflicts (e.g., argued with a family member), family demands (e.g., had a lot of demands made by your family), school conflicts (e.g., someone at school made fun of you) and school demands (e.g., had a lot of work at school) that occurred that day (Bolger et al., 1989). We averaged the number of family and school conflicts and demands each day across the two weeks. Lastly, adolescents completed a questionnaire to report on their feelings of parental and peer support (e.g., My parents[peers] helped me talk about my difficulties; Armsden & Greenberg, 1987).
We tested whether parental and peer support moderated the relation between daily stressors and sleep in a series of regression models. Results indicated that among adolescents who received low and average levels of parental support, greater family demands were related to shorter sleep duration (see Figure 1a) and more nighttime awakenings (see Figure 2). Similarly, results indicated that among adolescents who received low and average levels of parental support, greater school demands were related to shorter sleep duration (see Figure 1b).
Findings suggest that despite this developmental period of increased autonomy, adolescents who do not have sufficient support from family are most vulnerable to sleep difficulties in the context of greater family and school stressors

Author

• Kim M Tsai, San Jose State University
  Presenting Author