The Association Between Depression, Sleep Problems, and Overall Mental Health

by

Live Poster Session: Zoom Link

Emily Rodriguez
Emily Rodriguez

Emily is a freshman at Wesleyan from New York City. She is a prospective Economics and Psychology double major and is also interested in pursuing the international relations minor. Aside from academics, she is a part of Wesleyan’s Investment Group, the EduMate NYC tutoring program, POC Pre-Law Society, and Wesleyan’s Outing Club.

Ignore this button 🙂

Abstract:

Sleep is a vital, often neglected, component of every person’s overall health and well being. It is well established that depression is linked with poorer sleeping patterns among adolescents as well as young adult groups, and that those who experience poor sleep are more likely to experience poor mental health issues later on in their lives. This study uses a nationally representative sample, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (ADDHEALTH), to study the relationship between depression and sleep problems in order to determine whether those respondents with depression are more sensitive to the development of sleep problems. It’s important to study this relationship so that those disorders associated with poor sleep quality can be diagnosed and treated, bringing relief to those who suffer from them.

A sample of the fourth wave of ADDHEALTH which consisted of an in home interview survey based on 15,701 original Wave I participants ages 24 to 32 was used in which respondents reported how often they had trouble falling and staying asleep, as well as whether they had felt depressed during the past 4 weeks to answer the following two questions:

  • Does depression make adults (ages 24 to 32) more sensitive to the development of sleeping problems?
  • Does the association between depression and sleep problems differ for individuals’ depending on their living quarters?

Overall, the results suggested that depression in adults of ages 24 to 32 does play a pivotal role in worsening their sleep quality and mental health. Bivariate testing, which modeled sleep problems by depression, revealed that respondents with depression were significantly more likely to have a sleep problem compared to those who don’t. However, a multivariate test that controlled for respondents’ living quarters, revealed that there was no longer a relationship between the two variables but that living quarters is then a potential explanation for why respondents’ have depression. On this basis, the concept of depression should be taken into account when designing customized plans for those individuals with bad sleeping patterns alongside factors like those individuals’ work schedule, living quarters, diet, and medical issues in attempts to improve their overall mental health.

Emily-R-QAC-Poster