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Subjective Sleep Quality and Anxious and Fearful Responding to Bodily Arousal among Children and Adolescents

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Abstract

Poor sleep quality commonly co-occurs with anxiety among youth. However, little research has examined linkages between sleep quality and factors thought to underlie panic vulnerability. This study tested the association between self-reported sleep quality and anxiety and fear reported during panic-relevant abrupt increases in bodily arousal elicited by a laboratory-based biological challenge procedure among community-recruited adolescents (n = 88; M age = 14.00 years; SD = 2.37). As predicted, both anxiety and fear reported during a well-established 3-min voluntary hyperventilation procedure were significantly positively associated with self-reported sleep quality, after controlling for age, gender, and disease concerns sub-facet of anxiety sensitivity. Findings are discussed in terms of additional research needed to better understand why sleep quality and anxiety reported during elevated bodily arousal are related among youth.

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Notes

  1. As a test of explanatory specificity, a fourth model was conducted that examined the relation between self-reported sleep quality and positive affect reported during a positive mood induction procedure. Post-positive-mood induction happiness ratings were entered as the dependent variable. Age, gender, and AS-disease concerns were entered as covariates in step 1, while subjective sleep quality was entered at step 2. Results indicated a nonsignificant relation [f (1, 70) = .18, NS]. This suggests the relation between sleep quality and cognitive-affective reactivity to the laboratory procedures was specific to an anxiety-relevant provocation and did not generalize to positive affect, thereby reducing the likelihood that results were exclusively due to general response biases.

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Acknowledgments

This project was supported, in part, by a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention contract (U49 CE001248).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, USA

    Kimberly A. Babson, Matthew T. Feldner, Casey D. Trainor & Ellen W. Leen-Feldner

  2. Addictive Disorders Treatment Program G. V. (Sonny) Montgomery VAMC, Jackson, MS, USA

    Kevin M. Connolly

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  1. Kimberly A. Babson
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  2. Matthew T. Feldner
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  3. Kevin M. Connolly
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  4. Casey D. Trainor
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  5. Ellen W. Leen-Feldner
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Correspondence to Kimberly A. Babson.

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Babson, K.A., Feldner, M.T., Connolly, K.M. et al. Subjective Sleep Quality and Anxious and Fearful Responding to Bodily Arousal among Children and Adolescents. Cogn Ther Res 34, 359–367 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-009-9240-3

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