(PS1-A22) The Relationship Between Sleep Quality, Anxiety, and Alcohol Use Among Adolescents

Approximately 57.8% of middle schoolers and 72.7% of high schoolers receive less than the American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommended sleep hours during school nights (Wheaton et al., 2018). Additionally, 23.8% of adolescents within the United States report insomnia symptoms (Donskoy & Longhmanee et al., 2018). Sleep difficulties during adolescence have been associated with negative outcomes, such as alcohol use as well as anxiety (Reddy et al., 2017; Wong et al., 2004, 2009). This relationship has been proposed to function via a negative reinforcement pathway where insomnia and insufficient sleep lead to increased anxiety as well as anxiolytic response to alcohol, therefore, increasing the risk for both alcohol use and alcohol use problems (Hasler & Pederson, 2020). However, no work to date has examined this negative reinforcement pathway to alcohol use within adolescents. The current study aims to address this gap by examining if sleep quality is related to adolescent alcohol use and frequency through serial indirect effects of adolescent anxiety symptoms and coping motives for alcohol use.
 
One hundred and seventeen US adolescents between 13 and 18 years of age (Mage = 16.31; SD = 0.96) were recruited using social media platforms. Participants who reported having tried alcohol at least once completed the Adolescent Sleep-Wake Scale (ASWS; LeBourgeois et al., 2005), Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS; Chorpita et al., 2000), Rutgers Alcohol Problem Index (RAPI; White & Labouvie, 1989), and the Teenage Motivation for Drinking Questionnaire (TMDQ; Comeau, Stewart, & Loba, 2001).
 
A serial, multiple mediator model (PROCESS model 6) was tested using the PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2017) in SPSS. The model examined if adolescent sleep quality is related to adolescent alcohol problems use via the sequential effects of anxiety symptoms and coping motives for alcohol use. Serial mediation analyses indicated that adolescent sleep quality was indirectly associated with adolescent alcohol use problems through the serial effect of adolescent anxiety symptoms and adolescent coping motives for alcohol use [b = -.05, SE = .02, (95% CI: -.09, -.01)].
 
Results of the current study suggest adolescent sleep quality is associated with higher levels of alcohol use problems through serial indirect effects of anxiety symptoms and coping motives for alcohol use. These findings represent a step towards parsing out the complex relationship between sleep quality, alcohol, anxiety, and coping motives among adolescents.