Sleep-Initiation and Sleep-Maintenance Difficulties in Relation to Depressive Symptoms among UK Adolescents

Abstract

Data from 10,139 adolescents in the UK Millennium Cohort Study were used to examine whether problems with falling asleep and staying asleep were related to depressive symptoms. The analysis focused on participants who were around 14 years old. Depressive symptoms were assessed with the Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire, while the two sleep measures were analysed separately. Regression models were built in stages, adding demographic factors first, followed by cyberbullying and parent–adolescent relationship variables. Adolescents who took longer to fall asleep or experienced greater difficulty returning to sleep after waking tended to report higher SMFQ scores. These patterns persisted after demographic, cyberbullying, and family-relationship variables were included in the model. Higher depressive symptom scores were also seen among adolescents reporting more cyberbullying victimisation, weaker parental closeness, and more frequent arguments with parents. The exploratory sex analysis suggested a steeper relationship between sleep latency and depressive symptoms for females, although this added little to the overall variance explained. These findings suggest that sleep-initiation and sleep-maintenance difficulties may provide distinct information about adolescent depressive symptoms and may be useful to assess separately. Studies following participants across a long period of time could show how sleep problems, psychosocial stressors, and depressive symptoms change in relation to one another.