The Influence of Parental Daily Stress and Mood on Adolescent Sleep

• In Event: 3-084 - The Influence of Parental Risk Factors and Extrafamilial Stressors on Sleep from Infancy to Emerging Adulthood

Integrative Statement

Family stress undermines children’s sense of emotional security and safety which are critical for healthful sleep (El-Sheikh et al., 2007). Studies show that poor family functioning (e.g., conflict) and parental maladjustment (e.g., depression) contribute to sleep difficulties among children (El-Sheikh et al., 2012). However, much of this research on family risk factors of sleep has focused on infancy through middle childhood. Consequently, less is known about family influences on adolescent sleep despite adolescence being a time of increased sleep problems. Furthermore, past research has typically focused on the global family environment and therefore, how these processes unfold day to day is not well understood. To address these issues, the current study examines how day-to-day variability in parents’ stressors and mood shape various dimensions of adolescent sleep (i.e., bedtime, duration, efficiency & latency) which were assessed via wrist actigraphy (behavioral sleep measures inferred from movement) and self-reports. Given that daily processes unfold within a broader context, we also explored whether adolescents’ own stressors and sense of family cohesion influenced these daily associations.

This study included 316 parent-adolescent dyads (Adolescents: Mage=16.40 years, SD=0.73, 57% females; Parents: Mage=45.67 years, SD=6.96, 91% mothers) from diverse ethnic backgrounds (42% Latino, 23% Asian, 29% White, 6% other). Parents completed daily diaries for 7 consecutive days. Each day, they reported on their feelings of negative affect (e.g., hopeless, uneasy) and whether any stressful events (e.g., argued with a family member) occurred. Across the same week, adolescents wore an actigraph watch every night and reported on their sleep the following morning. Data from their actigraphy and self-reports provided estimates of their bedtime, sleep duration, efficiency (i.e., proportion of the night spent asleep, an indicator of sleep quality) and latency (i.e., duration it takes to fall asleep). Additionally, adolescents completed a survey which assessed their sense of family cohesion (e.g., My family and I feel very close to each other; Olson et al., 1979) and the number of stressful life events (e.g., Your grades in school went down a lot; Gil-Rivas et al., 2003) within the past three months.

Multilevel models with days nested within individuals indicated that on days when parents experienced more negative affect than usual, adolescents who were emotionally close to their families went to bed later that night (Paper 2, Figure 1). It is possible that adolescents who have close family bonds are more cognizant to changes in their parents’ mood, which can heighten their arousal and delay their sleep. Furthermore, on days marked by more parental negative affect, adolescents who faced more stressful life events slept less and had poorer sleep quality that night, suggesting that adolescents’ own stressors increase their vulnerability to sleep difficulties (Paper 2, Figure 2). Adolescent sleep did not vary as a function of parents’ daily stressors.

Together, findings suggest that adolescent sleep is contingent upon the emotional climate at home -- changes in parents’ mood that are characterized by increases in negative affect disrupt adolescents’ feelings of emotional security, thereby interfering with their sleep.

Authors

• Kim M Tsai, San Jose State University
  Presenting Author

• Jessica J Chiang, Northwestern University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Joanna J Kim, UCLA
  Non-Presenting Author

• Andrew J Fuligni, UCLA
  Non-Presenting Author