Sleep quality and its relationship with school schedules and mental health of Nigerian secondary school adolescents

Abstract

STUDY OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to determine the sleep quality of in-school Nigerian adolescents and its association with their schooling and mental health outcomes. METHODS: The study was a descriptive cross-sectional study. It was conducted among adolescents attending public and private secondary schools within Ife Central Local Government, Osun State, southwestern Nigeria. A multistage sampling technique was employed to select study participants. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) - 9 and General Anxiety Disorder (GAD) - 7 questionnaires were used to determine sleep quality, depression and anxiety respectively. RESULTS: We studied 448 adolescents aged between 10-19 years with a mean age of 15.0±1.8 years. The majority of our respondents (85.0%) had poor sleep quality. More than half of the respondents (55.1%) had insufficient sleep during weekdays while only 34.8% had insufficient sleep during weekends. The school closing time and school type showed a statistically significant association with sleep quality (p= 0.039 and 0.005 respectively). The odds of having poor sleep quality increased by two-folds among adolescents in private schools when compared with those in public schools (aOR=1.97, 95%CI=1.069 - 3.627). Using multiple linear regression, only depression showed a statistically significant association with sleep quality at 95% CI (p<0.001) such that for every unit change in depression scores (PHQ-9), there will be a corresponding increase of 0.103 in sleep quality. CONCLUSIONS: Sleep quality is poor and is associated with the mental health of adolescents adversely. This should also be addressed in the development of appropriate interventions.