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Association of sleep patterns with psychological positive health and health complaints in children and adolescents

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Abstract

Purpose

Psychological positive health and health complaints have long been ignored scientifically. Sleep plays a critical role in children and adolescents development. We aimed at studying the association of sleep duration and quality with psychological positive health and health complaints in children and adolescents from southern Spain.

Methods

A randomly selected two-phase sample of 380 healthy Caucasian children (6–11.9 years) and 304 adolescents (12–17.9 years) participated in the study. Sleep duration (total sleep time), perceived sleep quality (morning tiredness and sleep latency), psychological positive health and health complaints were assessed using the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children questionnaire.

Results

The mean (standard deviation [SD]) reported sleep time for children and adolescents was 9.6 (0.6) and 8.8 (0.6) h/day, respectively. Sleep time ≥10 h was significantly associated with an increased likelihood of reporting no health complaints (OR 2.3; P = 0.005) in children, whereas sleep time ≥9 h was significantly associated with an increased likelihood of overall psychological positive health and no health complaints indicators (OR ~ 2; all P < 0.05) in adolescents. Reporting better sleep quality was associated with an increased likelihood of reporting excellent psychological positive health (ORs between 1.5 and 2.6; all P < 0.05). Furthermore, children and adolescents with no difficulty falling asleep were more likely to report no health complaints (OR ~ 3.5; all P < 0.001).

Conclusions

Insufficient sleep duration and poor perceived quality of sleep might directly impact quality of life in children, decreasing general levels of psychological positive health and increasing the frequency of having health complaints.

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Acknowledgments

This study was funded by Centro Andaluz de Medicina del Deporte, Junta de Andalucía, Orden 4/02/05, BOJA No 37 (REF. JA-CTD2005-01), the Spanish Ministry of Education (AP-2010-0963) and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (RYC-2010-05957). We thank Dr. Marilla D. Svinicki at the University of Texas at Austin, TX, USA, for her help in editing the writing of the manuscript.

Conflict of interests

Authors declare no conflict of interests.

Ethical standard

A comprehensive verbal description of the nature and purpose of the study was given to the children, adolescents, their parents and teachers. This information was also sent to parents or children supervisors by regular mail, and written consents from parents, children and adolescents were requested. The study was approved by the Review Committee for Research Involving Human Subjects at the University of Cádiz, Spain.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physical Education and Sport, Faculty of Sport Sciences, University of Granada, Carretera de Alfacar, s/n, 18011, Granada, Spain

    Víctor Segura-Jiménez & Jonatan R. Ruiz

  2. Department of Physical Education, Faculty of Education Sciences, University of Cádiz, Cádiz, Spain

    Ana Carbonell-Baeza & José Castro-Piñero

  3. Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education, University of Texas-Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Xiaofen D. Keating

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  1. Víctor Segura-Jiménez
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  2. Ana Carbonell-Baeza
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  3. Xiaofen D. Keating
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  4. Jonatan R. Ruiz
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  5. José Castro-Piñero
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Correspondence to Víctor Segura-Jiménez.

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Segura-Jiménez, V., Carbonell-Baeza, A., Keating, X.D. et al. Association of sleep patterns with psychological positive health and health complaints in children and adolescents. Qual Life Res 24, 885–895 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-014-0827-0

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