Strategies for Controlling Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts and Insomnia Severity in Urban-Residing Young Adult African Americans.

INTRODUCTION: Poor sleep is common in our society, particularly for African Americans, and is associated with adverse mental and physical health outcomes. Unwanted, intrusive thoughts contribute to sleep disturbances and can be engendered by living in stressful urban environments, which are disproportionately inhabited by African Americans. Studies of other populations have shown that cognitive coping strategies to manage intrusive thoughts vary in their adaptiveness. OBJECTIVE: To examine the relationship between thought control strategies and insomnia severity in urban residing young-adult African Americans. METHOD: Sixty-four young adult African Americans completed a demographic questionnaire, the Thought Control Questionnaire for Insomnia-revised, and the Insomnia Severity Index. RESULTS: There were moderate to strong positive correlations of aggressive suppression, worry, behavioral distraction, and social avoidance with ISI scores. Poor sleepers endorsed greater use of worry and aggressive suppression than good sleepers. Results from a multiple linear regression analysis revealed that aggressive suppression, social avoidance, and behavioral distraction significantly predicted insomnia severity, and aggressive suppression was the strongest predictor in the model. CONCLUSIONS: These results extend findings of aggressive suppression as a correlate of insomnia severity to an urban-residing young adult African American sample. Future research should identify adaptive approaches and the utility of modifying maladaptive strategies.

Neighborhood Stress Predicts Fear of Sleep Independently of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

BACKGROUND: Chronic insufficient sleep is linked to a variety of adverse health outcomes, and African Americans have been found to have poorer sleep than their non-Hispanic White counterparts. African Americans disproportionately live in low-income disordered neighborhoods which increases their risk of trauma exposure and adversely affects their sleep. Fear of sleep is a construct linked to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We have reported a relationship between fear of sleep and insomnia in urban residing African Americans. Our objective is to report the relative contributions of neighborhood stress along with PTSD to fear of sleep. METHODS: The present study features a nonclinical sample of 117 African Americans (ages 18-35) who reside in DC. RESULTS: After controlling for gender, hierarchical linear regression analyses revealed that PTSD severity and perceptions of the neighborhood environment accounted for approximately 32% of the variance in sleep-related fears (∆R2 = .320, p < .001). Regression coefficients suggest that perceptions of the neighborhood (ß = .360) predict sleep-related fears to a similar degree as PTSD severity (ß = .368). CONCLUSION: Results from this study have implications for interventions to help African Americans to cope with their neighborhood environments effect on their sleep.