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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Maurice M. Ohayon, MD, DSc, PhD, School of Medicine, Sleep Epidemiology, Stanford University, 3430 W. Bayshore road, Palo Alto, CA 94303, (650) 494-1137, mohayon@stanford.edu

Introduction: Despite many constraints on time schedules among adults younger than 25 years, epidemiologic data on sleep complaints among them are limited. This study provides additional data on insomnia complaints and short sleep in young adults. Methods: 6,694 participants representative of the general population of New York and California States were interviewed by telephone using the Sleep-EVAL system. 640 of them were aged between 18 and 24 years. The participation rate was 85%. The questionnaire included the assessment of insomnia symptomatology, sleep/mental disorders according to DSM-IV classification. Results: Overall, 18.4% of young adults complained of a nonrestorative sleep (NRS), 16.4% of a disrupted sleep (DS) and 13.6% of difficulty initiating sleep (DIS) at least 3 nights per week. Moderate or severe daytime sleepiness (EDS) was reported by 33.9% of them. Sleep duration <6 hours was reported by 17.9% of the young adults. Logistic regressions shown that NRS was associated with poor health status (OR:4.0); DS (OR:1.6) and DIS (OR:2.6) with being a woman. Short sleep (<6 hours per night) was related to being obese (OR:2.1) being a working student (OR:2.3) and having poor health (OR:2.1). However, once controlled for insomnia, short sleep was no longer associated with being obese. EDS was associated with being a working student (OR:1.8) and having poor health (OR:3.6). Conclusions: Insomnia complaints affected more young women. Short sleep and EDS were characteristics of students who also worked. This was further illustrated by the high number of these young adults who complained that working affected their sleep.

Learning Objectives:

• Evaluate the impact of work and study on the sleep and excessive daytime sleepiness in young adults.

Keywords: Epidemiology, Youth at Work

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation