Browsing by Subject "insomnia"

The purpose of the study was to examine the associations between the Big Five personality traits (neuroticism, extroversion, conscientiousness, openness to experience and agreeableness) and insomnia symptoms. The insomnia symptoms were difficulties to initiate sleep, awakenings during sleep, waking up too early and feeling tired after a night's sleep. According to theories on insomnia and to empirical research, high neuroticism, low extroversion, low conscientiousness and low agreeableness may be associated with insomnia. In empirical research, high neuroticism has consistently been associated with insomnia but also low extraversion, low conscientiousness and low agreeableness have been associated with it. It was therefore hypothesized that high neuroticism, low extraversion, low conscientiousness and low agreeableness are associated with insomnia symptoms. The participants, aged 30-45, were derived from the Young Finns study. The sample size was 1708. The Big Five personality traits were assessed with the NEO-FFI measure and insomnia symptoms with Jenkins's sleep problems scale. Ordinal regressions were used in analyzing the data. All of the Big Five personality traits were associated with at least some of the insomnia symptoms. In general, high neuroticism and high openness to experience were associated with more insomnia symptoms, whereas low extroversion, low conscientiousness and low agreeableness were associated with better sleep. High neuroticism had the strongest associations with most of the insomnia symptoms. When it comes to the trait openness to experience, the results of this study were inconsistent with previous studies, and therefore more information on the subject would be needed. The results of this study could be used in planning interventions for insomnia sufferers.