Follow up study on sleep behavior, chronotype and emotional symptoms of college students in Anhui Province / 中国学校卫生

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To explore the relationships between sleep behaviors, chronotype and emotional symptoms including depression and anxiety symptoms among college students.@*Methods@#Freshmen and sophomore from one university in Anhui Province were recruited through cluster sampling method. The baseline survey was conducted in November 2020, and the follow up survey was conducted 2 months later. The Morning and Evening Questionnaire 5 (MEQ-5) was used to assess chronotype. The Insomnia severity Index (ISI) and Epworth Sleepiness Scale for Children and Adolescents (ESS-CHAD) were used to evaluate sleep behaviors. Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21) was used to assess depression and anxiety symptoms, respectively. The detection rate of depression and anxiety among college students with different demographic characteristics, different sleep chronotypes and sleep behavior were compared, and the association between sleep behavior, chronotypes and depression and anxiety symptoms was analyzed.@*Results@#The detection rates of depressive and anxiety symptoms were higher in the college students with daytime sleepiness and insomnia( χ 2=12.39，22.68；40.14，29.46， P <0.01). Logistic regression results showed that at the baseline daytime sleepiness and insomnia were positively associated with depression ( OR =3.03, 5.23) and anxiety symptoms ( OR =3.74, 4.24), respectively ( P ＜0.05), however, no association was found between chronotype and symptoms of depression and anxiety ( P ＞0.05). Follow up survey results were consistent with baseline.@*Conclusion@#Daytime sleepiness and insomnia are risk factors for depression and anxiety symptoms among college students. It is suggested that keeping healthy sleep behaviors play an important role in mental health promotion among college students in the future.