The Indirect Effect of Sleep Quality on Stress-Related Psychosocial Outcomes in Adolescents: An Investigation Across Genders

TL;DR

This study shows that sleep quality strongly influences how stress affects school performance and pain in teens, with some differences between boys and girls.

Contribution

The study identifies sleep quality as a key modifiable pathway linking stress to psychosocial outcomes in adolescents, with gender-specific effects.

Findings

Sleep quality mediates 78.4% of the effect of stress on school functioning in adolescents.

Sleep quality mediates 54.2% of the effect of stress on pain in adolescents.

The indirect effect of sleep quality on pain is significant only for girls.

Abstract

Sleep is foundational for adolescent psychosocial outcomes though often compromised by normative developmental changes and external factors. This cross-sectional study examined sleep quality as a mechanism linking stress and psychosocial outcomes and explored gender differences. Adolescents (N = 246; Mage=15.8; 46.3% female) completed self-report measures assessing sleep quality and psychosocial outcomes. Structural equation modeling results indicated sleep quality accounted for 78.4% of the total effect of stress on school functioning (b=−0.45, p < 0.001) and 54.2% of the total effect of stress on pain (b = 0.14, p = 0.002). A larger indirect effect of sleep quality on school functioning (b=−0.26, p = 0.016) emerged for boys than girls, and the effect of sleep quality on pain was significant only for girls (b = 0.18, p < 0.001, 69.6% of total effect). Sleep quality explained a large proportion of the effect of stress on school functioning and pain. Sleep quality represents a modifiable transdiagnostic pathway that may buffer the effects of stress in adolescence.

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