PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIO-ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS AS CORRELATES OF QUALITY SLEEP AMONG IN-SCHOOL ADOLESCENTS IN SOUTHWESTERN, NIGERIA

Abstract

Good quality sleep is essential for physical and mental alertness. However, evidence have shown that many in-school adolescents experience poor quality sleep which makes it impossible for them to adequately perform daily routine. Previous studies have focused largely on interventions aimed at improving quality sleep with little emphasis on psychological and socio-environmental factors. This study, therefore, was designed to examine the influence of some psychological (anxiety, depression, psychological stress and neuroticism, and socio-environmental (use of social media,’ drug abuse and physical home environment) factors on quality sleep among in-school adolescents in southwestern, Nigeria.

The study was anchored to Oswald’s Restoration Theory of Sleep, while the survey design was adopted. Multistage random sampling technique was used. Three states (Ekiti, Ogun, and Oyo) were selected, while three Local Governments Areas (LGAs) in each state were selected. Two Senior Secondary Schools (SSS) were sampled from each LGA. A total of 100 SSSII students were randomly selected from each school. Instruments used were Family Packed Questionnaire (α=0.75); Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (α=0.85); Beck Depression (α=0.80); Psychological Stress Adolescent (α=0.82); and Neuroticism (α=0.88) and Hamilton Anxiety (α=0.78) inventories; and Social-networking Time Use (α=0.92) and Adolescent’s Drug Involvement (α0.93) scales. These were complemented with in-depth interviews with selected in-school adolescents across the three states. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, t-test, Pearson product moment correlation and Multiple regression at 0.05 level of significance, while qualitative data were content analysed.

Respondent’s mean age was 15.35 ± 1.49 years. Seventy percent had poor quality sleep, while 19.4% of the participants experienced good quality sleep. Psychological stress (r=0.25), neuroticism (r=0.18), depression (r=0.15), drug abuse (r=-0.13) social media use (r=0.10), and anxiety (r=0.07)had significant relationship with quality sleep, but physical home environment did not. Psychological and socio-environmental factors had a joint significant prediction on quality sleep (F(7;1792) =27.99; AdjR2=0.99) accounting for 9.9% of its variance. Psychological stress (β=0.20) depression (β=0.13), neuroticism (β=0.09), use of social media (β=0.08), adolescent drug abuse (β=-0.072) and anxiety (β=-0.07), contributed relatively to quality sleep. There was a significant difference between the quality sleep of male (x ̅=22.46) and female (x ̅=20.01) in-school adolescents.Problem of falling asleep, and waking up at night were major sleep problems experienced by the respondent. Also, adolescents experienced regular insomnia in the morning.

Psychological stress, depression, neuroticism, adolescent drug abuse and anxiety influenced quality sleep among in-school adolescents in southwestern Nigeria. Counseling and clinical psychologists should pay attention to these factors for improved quality sleep among adolescents.