The Relationship of Stress & Coping Style to Reported Sleep Adequacy in MU Students Francis W. Craig & The Experimental Methods Class (Spring 99) Mansfield University

Reduced Sleep is Unhealthy n General effects of reduced sleep on health, behavior –$15.9 billion in health care costs –cognitive abilities/traffic accident/gen prod. n Effects of reduced sleep on lives of college aged students- increasing prob. –poor grades, greater stress –greater accident, lower QOL

[narrowing the scope] A Health Problem in Students n Environmental and Social Conditions contribute to loss of sleep (Carscaddon, 1991) For instance n Dorm Life n Relationship Difficulties n Poor Time Management n Assignments with Time Pressure n Not all students experiencing these conditions “lose sleep”. Why?

Coping Styles May Affect Sleep Quantity n Students at higher risk that sleep well may “cope” differently than those that don’t. n Report of Less Sleep = Poorer coping –(Hall & Johnson, 1995) 82 students n sleep decrease, task focused styles decreased and emotion focused increased.

Hypotheses n Hypotheses n #1: Task Focused Coping Lower n #2: Emotion Focused coping Higher n #3: Avoidance Coping Higher n #4: Stress Higher

Study Design Select All 22 years or less N= 150 Initial Sample N=180 Good Sleep N= 85 Poor Sleep N= 65 Dependent Variables Emotion, Problem Avoidance Coping Analyses: T-tests

Participant Demographics –Age 19.8 (.45) –Male65 –Female85 –Race: n 110 Caucasian 20 Afr. Amer. n 10 Asian10 Other – Perceived Sleep Quality n 85 adequate65 inadequate

Results: Coping NS

Results: Reported Life Stress P<.01

Discussion of Results n Reported Sleep Quality is related to emotion, but not task focused coping. –Emotion sleep depriving (rumination), task-focus not sleep enhancing n Reported sleep is related to an avoidant style of handling problems –go to bed when not sleepy.. Decrease association of bed with sleep (Duncan, 1997) n Poor sleep is related in increased life stress across control and demand dimensions

Future Directions & Conclusions n Limitations: Chicken or Egg; Sampling n Strengths: Sample size n Future: Longitudinal Analysis to get at whether stress/coping causes or results from decreased sleep n Contribution: