Behavioral and other characteristics of relevance for health in adolescents with self-perceived sleeping problems.

AIM

To study the associations between self-perceived sleeping problems and wide areas of adolescent life.

METHODS

All eligible adolescents 13-18 years old (3216 pupils) in a medium-sized town in Sweden completed a validated in-depth questionnaire (Q90), with 165 questions.

RESULTS

Nine hundred and thirty-two (29.3%) adolescents (36.3% among girls; 21.9% among boys) reported having poor sleep, combined with daytime tiredness in the vast majority. Significant independent associations in specific age and gender groups were found for 'feeling depressed', breakfast habits, 'I do well in school' (inverse), physical training (inverse), no adult to talk to, having bullied someone, shop-lifting, physical fighting, not feeling healthy, abdominal pain, headache, tobacco use, and sexual experience.

CONCLUSIONS

Many of these adolescents feel very poorly, as is evident from the magnitude of the problems. Poor sleepers form an easily recognized group, but it seems unlikely that therapy for sleeping problems alone would be successful in a large proportion of these adolescents.