Sleep Hygiene Among Adolescents Clinically Referred to Behavioral Sleep Medicine: Comparisons to the Validation Sample and Associations with Sleep Problems.

Abstract

Objectives: 1) Compare the sleep hygiene of our clinical sample to the community-based validation sample and established clinical thresholds and 2) clarify the relationship between sleep hygiene and sleep problems in adolescents referred for Behavioral Sleep Medicine (BSM) treatment.

Methods: Clinical participants included BSM patients aged 11-18 years (n = 354) with insomnia. Adolescents completed the Adolescent Sleep Hygiene Scale (ASHS) and the Pediatric Insomnia Severity Index. Caregivers completed the Sleep Disorders Inventory for Students. Independent samples t-tests compared sleep hygiene between our clinical sample and the community-based ASHS validation sample (572 American adolescents). We report which sleep hygiene subscales fell below thresholds indicating clinically significant problems. Multiple linear regressions determined whether demographics and sleep hygiene subscales predicted sleep problems.

Results: Adolescents referred to our BSM clinic had better overall sleep hygiene than the community-based validation sample, p < .001. They had inadequate sleep hygiene practices related to sleep stability, behavioral arousal, and cognitive/emotional arousal. Demographics and sleep hygiene factors significantly predicted both adolescent-reported insomnia severity and caregiver-reported sleep disturbance, ps < 0.001.

Conclusion: Poor sleep hygiene may result from maladaptive coping and can compound existing sleep problems. It is important to have consistent definitions of sleep hygiene that limit overlap with other key intervention targets.