Sleep quality and its relationship with school schedules and mental health of Nigerian secondary school adolescents.

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the sleep quality of in-school Nigerian adolescents and its association with their schooling and mental health outcomes. The study was a descriptive cross-sectional study. It was conducted among adolescents attending public and private secondary schools within Ife Central Local Government, Osun State, southwestern Nigeria. A multistage sampling technique was employed to select study participants. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) - 9 and General Anxiety Disorder (GAD) - 7 questionnaires were used to determine sleep quality, depression and anxiety respectively. We studied 448 adolescents aged between 10-19 years with a mean age of 15.0±1.8 years. The majority of our respondents (85.0%) had poor sleep quality. More than half of the respondents (55.1%) had insufficient sleep during weekdays while only 34.8% had insufficient sleep during weekends. The school closing time and school type showed a statistically significant association with sleep quality (p= 0.039 and 0.005 respectively). The odds of having poor sleep quality increased by two-folds among adolescents in private schools when compared with those in public schools (aOR=1.97, 95%CI=1.069 - 3.627). Using multiple linear regression, only depression showed a statistically significant association with sleep quality at 95% CI (p<0.001) such that for every unit change in depression scores (PHQ-9), there will be a corresponding increase of 0.103 in sleep quality. Sleep quality is poor and is associated with the mental health of adolescents adversely. This should also be addressed in the development of appropriate interventions.