Factors associated with objective (actigraphic) and subjective sleep quality in young adult women.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to describe factors associated with actigraphic and subjective sleep quality in young women.


METHODS
Participants were 73 regularly menstruating women, 20-40 years old, who were not taking oral contraceptives, pregnant, or shift workers. Women contributed an average of 7 nights of actigraphy data during the luteal menstrual cycle phase, resulting in a total of 595 nights of data.


RESULTS
One night of actigraphy data was unreliable for measuring total sleep time, sleep onset, and time in bed (intraclass correlation < or =.15) but was acceptable for measuring sleep efficiency and total wake time (intraclass correlation [ICC]=.52). Going to bed late, medication use, employment, increased daylight hours, longer menstrual cycle length, and higher body mass index (BMI) were associated with poorer actigraphic sleep measures. Employment, age, and perceived stress were associated with subjective sleep quality.


CONCLUSIONS
Multiple factors were associated with sleep quality in these young women who were sleeping at home. However, the associations differed for subjectively versus actigraphically assessed sleep quality. Actigraphy is feasible for measuring sleep, but multiple recording nights may be needed to obtain reliable estimates.
Tworoger
Shelley S
SS
Channing Laboratory, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA. nhsst@channing.harvard.edu
Davis
Scott
S
Vitiello
Michael V
MV
Lentz
Martha J
MJ
McTiernan
Anne
A
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D004651:Employment; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic; D010561:Personnel Staffing and Scheduling; D017286:Polysomnography; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012890:Sleep; D012893:Sleep Wake Disorders; D013315:Stress, Psychological