Prevalences and correlates of sleep problems among adolescents in specialty mental health services and in the community: what differs?
OBJECTIVE
Knowledge of sleep problems and their relationships among adolescent psychiatric patients is limited. This study investigated whether adolescents in specialty mental health care differ in rate and correlates of sleep problems from adolescents in a community sample; 2465 adolescents from a community sample were compared with a representative clinical sample of 129 adolescent patients.


METHODS
Comparisons were made on frequent sleep problems according to scores on the Youth Self-Report, the Mood and Feelings Questionnaire, and instruments assessing coping styles, stresses and family functioning.


RESULTS
Sleep problems were more frequent in the clinical sample than the community sample (31.3% vs. 5%). Sleeping little and being overtired were the most common sleep problems. Sleep problems were multivariately associated with internalizing problems in both samples. Poor family functioning and distractive coping were multivariately associated with sleep problems among adolescent patients, whereas depressive symptoms were multivariately associated in community adolescents.


CONCLUSIONS
Prevalences of sleep problems were high among adolescent patients. However, sleep problems may be in danger of being unnoticed in clinical practice. Clinicians should ask about such problems and be aware of possible connections with family functioning, depression and suicidality. Therapeutic interventions directed towards sleep problems should be considered.
Reigstad
Bjørn
B
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Nordlandssykehuset, Bodø, Norway. bre@nlsh.no
Jørgensen
Kirsti
K
Sund
Anne Mari
AM
Wichstrøm
Lars
L
D003156:Community Mental Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015897:Comorbidity; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009664:Norway; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011594:Psychometrics; D012016:Reference Values; D012307:Risk Factors; D016728:Self-Injurious Behavior / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D012737:Sex Factors; D012893:Sleep Wake Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013406:Suicide, Attempted / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data