Sleep quality and sleep patterns as mediators between stressors and life satisfaction in Czech university students: a structural equation model
Abstract
Even though emerging adulthood, the life phase between adolescence and adulthood typically ascribed to university students, brings opportunities for exploration, it also comes with instability (Arnett 2015). And despite many positive rewards, the joy of student life can be outweighed by the stressful experiences associated with this life period (Cvetkovski, Reavley, and Jorm 2012; Leahy et al. 2010; Sreeramareddy et al. 2007). The major stressors for students are commonly academic and educational pressure (Cooke et al. 2006; Monk 2004; Stanley and Manthorpe 2002), relationship difficulties (Darling et al. 2007; Stanley and Manthorpe 2002) and financial difficulties (Monk 2004; Stanley and Manthorpe 2002). Extensive working hours have also been previously found to be harmful to mental well-being (Ogawa et al. 2018; Wong, Chan, and Ngan 2019). There is also evidence that students who spent more time alone studying are reported to be significantly more stressed and less satisfied with their life (Coccia and Darling 2016). It is, therefore, not surprising that this adjustment phase is considered to be one of the most stressful periods in life (Chao 2012; Cress and Lampman 2007).
It is been repeatedly reported that, generally, perceived negative stress causes a decrease in life satisfaction among students (Abolghasemi and Taklavi Varaniyab 2010; Barnes and Lightsey 2005; Darling et al. 2007; Lee, Kim, and Wachholtz 2016; Matheny et al. 2002; Puri, Yadav, and Shekhawat 2016; Schiffrin and Nelson 2010; Weinstein and Laverghetta 2009). As a result, university students are a vulnerable group suffering from a number of depressive symptoms (Mikolajczyk et al. 2008; Rückert 2015), with high-stress levels (Stanley and Manthorpe 2002) and the highest prevalence of mental health problems in comparison to any other age group (Dahlin, Joneborg, and Runeson 2005; Kumar 2016; Verger et al. 2010). Despite the generally negative impact of these stressors on life satisfaction, the link between study life and life satisfaction is double because there are also positive stressors such as better academic experience and living conditions (Chow 2014) that are along with positive social relationships (Chow 2014; Coccia and Darling 2016; Kuang-Tsan and Fu-Yuan 2017; Mahmoud et al. 2012) beneficial to life satisfaction (Chow 2014).
While the effect of various stressors on the overall well-being of students is thoroughly described and well documented, the role of protective power of sleep in this equation and this particular age category is less well so. It is consistently demonstrated that healthy sleep patterns and high sleep quality are related to higher levels of well-being and life satisfaction in various populations: better sleep quality is associated with greater life satisfaction in children (Blackwell et al. 2020), older adults (Duong 2021; Papi and Cheraghi 2021; Zhi et al. 2016) but also among students (Ness and Saksvik-Lehouillier 2018; Shin and Kim 2018). Specifically students, however, are more commonly associated with unhealthy sleep patterns such as frequent sleep disturbances (Mandelkorn et al. 2021), insufficient sleep duration (Gusman et al. 2021; Lund et al. 2010; Ulrich et al. 2021) and irregular sleep-wake patterns (Lund et al. 2010) which are present at alarming levels in university students.
Barber, Munz, Bagsby and Powell (2010) suggested that sleep quality as a potential mediator could predict well-being in university students which was then demonstrated to some extent by Peach, Gaultney and Gray (2016) who inquired about the effect of sleep hygiene on depression and subjective well-being. These prior mentioned studies have, however, significant limitations: (1) they are both of a considerably small scale (80 and 218 respondents), (2) they do not acknowledge the effect of a broader range of stressors as independent variables and (3) the secondly mentioned study (Peach et al. 2016) uses a more universal sleep hygiene scale which only consists of a couple of items on sleep patterns. There is also research examining the impact and mediating roles of fear and anxiety on depression, sleep and well-being (Duong 2021) but this focuses specifically on fear and anxiety of Covid-19 and sleep disturbances but (4) omits more general everyday stressors, sleep schedule and life satisfaction. Hence, there is a clear need for studies using a large sample of young adults to explore the effect of various positive and negative stressors (alongside important confounders such as socio-economic background) on life satisfaction through sleep quality while incorporating sleep patterns.
The need for scientific knowledge on the relationship between stress, sleep and life satisfaction among students has become even more pressing during the Covid-19 pandemic: many of the above-cited stressors were amplified by Covid-19 policy measures (including university closures) leading to lower mental well-being and decreased life satisfaction (Eurofound et al. 2021). This was also associated with a higher proportion of students presenting with anxiety, stress and depression in various countries in 2020 demonstrated by a meta-analysis of 27 peer-reviewed studies from 15 countries (Batra et al. 2021) and further supported by more recent studies (Gusman et al. 2021; Rogowska, Kuśnierz, and Bokszczanin 2020; Ulrich et al. 2021). Moreover, life satisfaction among students worsened (Rogowska et al. 2021). Almost 30 % of students from 136 countries reported changes in sleep patterns (Ellakany et al. 2022). In comparison to the pre-pandemic period, students reported poorer sleep according to some (Lukowski et al. 2022; Ulrich et al. 2021). There is also a study suggesting that the student sleep quality has not changed, yet emphasizing respondents in their study experience overall poor sleep quality (Benham 2020) which is also in line with pre-pandemic sleep quality results (Oswalt and Wyatt 2014; Yang et al. 2003). Sleep quality level is also likely to be dependent on the period when it is captured since longitudinal studies show an initial increase in sleep quality at the very beginning of the pandemic outbreak but a continuous decrease over time (Gusman et al. 2021)
Previous findings show the importance of further investigating sleep consistency and quality and life satisfaction of students. Despite previous research and researchers' implications, there are no studies considering the role of both sleep patterns and sleep quality in the relationship between stressors and life satisfaction in the student population neither pre-pandemic nor during the pandemic. This article, therefore, aims to focus on an extensive Czech student population sample of 2,488 respondents - interviewed during the third Covid-19 wave in 2021 - which is likely to be most vulnerable to compromised well-being and is otherwise neglected through exploring the relationship between various stressors and life satisfaction patterns through the mediation of sleep quality.