Loading ...

TOPLINE:

Teens who reported higher levels of stress showed more irregular sleep patterns and problems, and those who reported living in supportive neighborhoods had more consistent sleep patterns and fewer sleep problems.

METHODOLOGY:

• Researchers analyzed data between 2022 and 2024 from a cross-sectional observational study to examine how teens stress and neighborhood were linked to sleep outcomes.
• Overall, 163 teens aged 15-18 years (mean age, 16.2 years; 58.9% girls) in Philadelphia were included.
• Each teen wore an actigraphy device on their wrist for 2 weeks to measure the duration of their sleep, and time of sleep onset and waking up. They also completed surveys four times daily, where they reported stress levels and sleep problems from the previous night.
• Teens completed the 10-item Perceived Stress Scale, with scores from 0 to 40 indicating levels of perceived stress and rated the safety of their neighborhoods.

TAKEAWAY:

• Higher stress scores were associated with increased night-to-night variability in sleep duration, sleep onset time, and wake-up time, and more sleep problems (P < .05).
• Higher daily stress was associated with teens falling asleep earlier (beta coefficient, -0.22), waking up earlier (beta coefficient, -0.30), and having greater variability in sleep duration and wake-up time (P < .05 for all).
• Teens living in neighborhoods where they felt less connected had a lower variability in sleep duration, sleep onset time, wake-up time, and had lower sleep problem scores (P < .05 for all).
• Associations between stress and sleep variability were stronger in teens who felt least safe or least connected to their neighborhoods.

IN PRACTICE:

“[The] findings highlight that incorporating both self-reported sleep assessments and sleep variability metrics provides a more complete picture of the relationship of environmental and psychological factors with adolescent sleep,” the authors wrote.

SOURCE:

The study was led by Gabrielle DiFiore, MPH, of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania. It was published online on May 5 in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

LIMITATIONS:

Measures of stress and neighborhood may have been biased because of self-reporting. Researchers did not assess household stress. Data from 14 days may not indicate long-term patterns.

DISCLOSURES:

The work was supported by a grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. The authors disclosed having no conflicts of interest.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.