Title : Investigating daytime sleepiness, psychological distress, and the mediating role of sleep quality: An institutional based study among young adults
Abstract:
Background:
Daytime sleepiness is defined as the uncontrollable drowsiness during daytime that can interfere with performing daily activities and psychomotor performance. Poor sleep quality and bad sleep behaviors have a large contribution to the prevalence of daytime sleepiness. A number of studies have assessed the prevalence of excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) . But none was performed in Sudan, or was directed to evaluate its correlation using mediation analysis. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of EDS among young adults and investigate its relationship with psychological distress (PD) and sleep quality using mediation analysis.
Method:
A cross-sectional study was carried out between April and August 2022 among young adults attending of Al-Neelain University in Khartoum state, Sudan. participants were selected using a systematic simple random sampling.The Epworth Sleepiness Scale, Kessler Psychological Distress Scale and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) were completed to determine EDS, PD, and sleep quality, respectively. Mediation analysis was performed to evaluate the effect of sleep quality and other co-variates on EDS.
Results:
A total of 303 young adult participated in the study. Mean age was 22.71 (±2.5) years, about two thirds were females (67%). The prevalence of EDS was 9.2%. Almost half of the participants (42.2%) had severe psychological distress. The majority of excessive daytime sleepers were severely psychologically distressed (14.8%, p=0.018). Multiple regression analysis was used to assess the mediating role of sleep disturbances (a component of sleep quality index) on the relationship between EDS and PD. The results revealed that PD was positively associated with EDS (B=.0634, p<0.05). While controlling for age, and PD, sleep disturbances also revealed a positive association with EDS (B=1.3067, p<0.05). Lastly, the results for bias-corrected percentile bootstrap method showed that the total effect was positively significant (B=.0634, p<0.05, SE=.0297, 95% CI [0.005 – 0.1218]) through full complimentary mediation. Also assessing the role of sleep onset latency (another component of PSQI) on the relationship between EDS and PD, the results revealed a significant total effect (B=0.0312, p<0.05, SE=0.0310, 95% CI [0.0061 – 0.1280]) only through a direct effect.
Conclusion: The study results revealed an association between EDS and PD among young adults. These findings advice to direct more attention towards the psychological health of young adults, and emphasize the need develop a better preventive approach to deal with pressure and distress.
Audience Take Away
- Assess the prevalence of Excessive daytime sleepiness among young adults living in Sudan
- Investigate the components of sleep quality and its mediating role the relation between daytime sleepiness and psychological distress
- Psychological distress can contribute to the aggravation of daytime sleepiness among young adults, but not necessarily in a direct manner
- This research is only the begging, other co-variates can be evaluated with mediation analysis
- The results of this study should draw more attention to invest more efforts on addressing the mental status of young adults to avoid future negative effects
