Sleep Moderates Improvements in Mental Health Outcomes in Youth: Building Resilience for Healthy Kids

Abstract

Purpose

To examine the role of sleep in a school-based resiliency intervention.

Design

Single group feasibility study.

Setting

Urban middle school

Subjects

Sixth grade students.

Intervention

A total of 285, 11–12-year-old students (70% White, 18% Hispanic, 55% female) participated in the six-week 1:1 Healthy Kids intervention. Youth (n = 248) completed electronic surveys at pre–post the 6-week study assessing mental health parameters and self-reported bed and wake time.

Measures

Students were categorized as having insufficient sleep opportunity if they reported time in bed of <9 hours per night.

Analysis

General linear models examined differences between groups for each mental health parameters pre–post-study.

Results

A third of participants (28%) were classified as having insufficient sleep opportunity. Youth with insufficient sleep were more often Hispanic (27% vs 16%; P < .001) and were more often classified with both mild to severe depression and anxiety symptoms (55% vs 35%; P = .004). The health coaching intervention was found to have a significant improvement on overall resilience and self-efficacy only among students who reported sufficient sleep, while no significant intervention effect was found for those students who reported insufficient sleep.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that youth with poor sleep health may not benefit from school-based resiliency interventions.