Browsing by Author "Lång, Sakari"

Aims: Adolescent sleep is impacted by numerous biological, psychosocial and contextual factors. The sheer number of new elements capable of affecting adolescent sleep has grown steadily, most notably the amount of electronic devices available. In this adolescent-based sample, we first seek to characterize, and secondly investigate the relationship between gaming, and adolescent sleep, depression and anxiety. Methods. Total of 1374 respondents, aged from 15 to 17 years of age, provided sufficient data in SleepHelsinki! Helsinki university research project. The associations between study parameters were analyzed using correlational comparisons and canonical correlations. Gender differences were also evaluated. The relationships between gaming, sleep, depression and anxiety were further studied using mediation model. Results and Conclusions. In our study the adolescents sleep duration averaged 7:10 hours (SD 1:07) which is well under the recommended amount 8-9 hours of sleep per night. Severe restriction of less than 6 hours of sleep existed in 17.3% of respondents. Negative associations between sleep duration and sleep quality were established on depression, anxiety, chronotype, gaming and alcohol consumption. Positive connections were found between good self-control and sleep hygiene. Girls fared systematically worse than their male counterparts: significantly having more severe sleep restrictions, longer sleep onset latency, worse sleep hygiene and sleep quality. The gaming addiction score was found to mediate the effect of both depression and anxiety on total sleep time. The hours of gaming also mediated the effect of anxiety, but not depression. This study confirms many findings indicating both risk factors and protective factors regarding adolescent sleep. The gaming is established as an integral component when examining adolescent sleep – it should be studied in unison with particularly anxiety and depression symptoms.