Whiting Claire, Bellaert Nellia, Deveney Christen, Tseng Wan-Ling
Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
Yale Child Study Center, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA.
Pers Individ Dif. 2023 Oct;213. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2023.112322. Epub 2023 Jun 29.
Irritability and sleep problems are common symptoms that span a range of internalizing and externalizing mental health disorders. While poor sleep has been associated with symptoms related to irritability (e.g., anxiety and depression), few studies have directly tested the association between sleep quality and irritability and whether the association is direct or mediated by a separate mechanism.
The present study used self-report measures to test whether sleep is associated with irritability in 458 adults aged 19-74 years (58 % female; 79 % White), and whether this association is mediated by emotion regulation. Confirmatory factor analyses were carried out to support the use of scores from these measures.
Controlling for anxiety and depression symptoms, results showed a direct association between poorer sleep quality and increased irritability (β = 0.25, < .001) that was not mediated by emotion regulation.
Our findings underscore the important link between sleep and irritability, both of which are common features of mental health difficulties, prompting further inquiry into the directionality of the findings and potential mediators. This work has notable clinical implications for sleep as a possible intervention target for individuals with high irritability.
易怒和睡眠问题是一系列内化和外化心理健康障碍常见的症状。虽然睡眠不佳与易怒相关症状（如焦虑和抑郁）有关，但很少有研究直接检验睡眠质量与易怒之间的关联，以及这种关联是直接的还是由另一种独立机制介导的。
本研究采用自我报告测量方法，检验458名19至74岁成年人（58%为女性；79%为白人）的睡眠是否与易怒有关，以及这种关联是否由情绪调节介导。进行验证性因素分析以支持使用这些测量的分数。
在控制焦虑和抑郁症状后，结果显示睡眠质量较差与易怒增加之间存在直接关联（β = 0.25，p <.001），且不受情绪调节介导。
我们的研究结果强调了睡眠与易怒之间的重要联系，这两者都是心理健康问题的常见特征，促使进一步探究这些发现的方向性和潜在的介导因素。这项工作对于将睡眠作为易怒个体可能的干预目标具有显著的临床意义。
