0749 Adolescents’ Self-Reported Insomnia, Subjective Experiences And Objective Sleep Measures During The COVID-19 Pandemic Free

Studies examining adolescents’ sleep during the COVID-19 pandemic yielded inconsistent results, with some studies finding a significant increase in insomnia symptoms but others finding no change. A majority of these studies used retrospective or concurrent reports of insomnia symptoms and did not include objective sleep measures, making it impossible to know the extent to which the reported symptoms were associated with actual sleep patterns. In addition, these studies did not account for factors that might have biased adolescents’ subjective reporting of insomnia such as negative emotions or high levels of pre-bedtime cognitive arousal. The goal of the present study was to examine the associations of self-reported symptoms of insomnia among typically developing adolescents with their emotional experiences, cognitive arousal at bedtime, and objective sleep measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Participants. Seventy-six adolescents (33 female, M(SD) age = 13.74(0.87) years). Procedure. Each participant’s sleep pattern was assessed in the home environment using actigraphy and a sleep log for seven consecutive nights in 2021. Adolescents provided information regarding their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic using the COVID-19 Adolescent Symptom & Psychological Experience (CASPE) questionnaire; information regarding their arousal at bedtime using the Pre-Sleep Arousal Scale and information regarding the insomnia symptoms using the Insomnia Severity Index.

Principal-component analysis produced a three-factor solution for the CASPE labeled as Negative-Anxious, Negative-Angry and Positive Emotions. Hierarchical regression analysis was conducted to examine the cross-sectional associations among adolescents’ emotional responses and subjective and objective sleep measures during the COVID-19 pandemic. Being a girl, reporting high level of pre-bedtime cognitive arousal and high Negative-Anxious emotions accounted the explained variance in adolescents’ self-reported insomnia symptoms. Actigraphy measured sleep efficiency, latency or duration did not increase significantly the explained variance.

These findings suggest that documentation of adolescents’ insomnia during the COVID-19 pandemic might have captured adolescents’ negative emotions rather than their objective sleep patterns. Limitations The cross-sectional design of this study limits the ability to determine causality.

CIHR, SSHRC