Joseph M. Dzierzewski

College students experienced various disruptions to their daily life and changes to their physical and mental health because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Much remains unknown about protective factors that could buffer the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Latinx college students’ mental health. Cross-sectional survey data collected during the pandemic was used to explore whether global sleep quality mediated associations between COVID-19 factors (i.e., negative experiences and racial/ethnic bias) and mental health outcomes (i.e., depressive and anxiety symptoms), and whether perceived social support and attitudinal familismo support served as moderators of this association. The current study included 490 Latinx college students (M_age = 19.1, 72.9% female). The mediation model had acceptable fit: χ² (df = 4) = 11.243, p = 0.024; RMSEA = 0.06; CFI = 0.99, SRMR = 0.01. Mediation results indicated that negative COVID-19 experiences (β = 0.12, 95% CI [0.09, 0.16], p = 0.001) and COVID-19 racial/ethnic bias (β = 0.04, 95% CI [0.01, 0.07], p = 0.023) were associated with worse global sleep quality, and, in turn, more severe mental health outcomes. There were no significant moderation effects. Implications for possible interventions to support Latinx college students’ mental health, and future directions are discussed.

Background: Sleep-related symptoms are common among people receiving medications for opioid use disorder (OUD), including buprenorphine. In outpatient addiction treatment, nighttime sleep complaints are often evaluated alongside active medication lists and recent substance exposures. This short report described patient-reported nighttime sleep symptoms and sleep-relevant medication class documentation among adults receiving buprenorphine for OUD. Methods: This cross-sectional study used survey data and medical-record abstraction from adults receiving buprenorphine for OUD at an academic addiction clinic from February 2022 to September 2023. Nighttime sleep symptoms were characterized using Insomnia Severity Index items 1– 3: difficulty falling asleep, difficulty staying asleep, and waking too early. Participants were categorized as No-Sx, Single-Sx, or Multi-Sx. Sleep-relevant medications documented on the active outpatient medication list were grouped into eight classes. Sample characteristics, nighttime symptom groups, medication class documentation, and urine drug testing results within 30 days were summarized descriptively. Results: Among study participants (n = 136), 72.1% endorsed at least one nighttime sleep symptom. Symptom group distribution was No-Sx (27.9%), Single-Sx (11.0%), and Multi-Sx (61.0%). In the Multi-Sx group, gabapentinoids were most frequently documented (34.9%), followed by sedating antidepressants (26.5%), sedating antihistamines (22.9%), and adrenergic agents (22.9%). Cannabinoids were detected in 46.2% of participants with available urine drug testing results. Conclusion: Nighttime sleep symptoms and sleep-relevant medication documentation were common in this outpatient buprenorphine-treated OUD sample. Findings support routine nighttime sleep symptom assessment, together with medication review and consideration of recent substance exposure, to help identify clinically relevant sleep concerns and inform safer outpatient buprenorphine care.

Purpose This study examined the ability of the Ru-SATED scale to detect elevated insomnia symptoms, and explored whether signal detection varied by sex or age. Methods U.S. adults ages 19-99 (N=3284; M_age=42.7±16.7; 45% male) completed online versions of the Ru-SATED and Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) measures, measuring sleep health and insomnia symptom severity, respectively. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses, examining criterion-related validity, were performed to identify the optimal Ru-SATED score to identify elevated insomnia symptoms based on an ISI total score ≥10. The area under the curve, sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy were calculated to evaluate the model’s performance at different values. Exploratory subgroup analyses evaluated performance across age and sex. Results ROC analyses identified a Ru-SATED score of ≤8 had the strongest signal detection performance for detecting elevated insomnia symptoms. However, exploratory analyses suggested a lower score of ≤7 for young adults and a higher score of ≤9 for female participants. Conclusion Ru-SATED scores contain an insomnia-related signal, consistent with a conceptual overlap between multidimensional sleep health and insomnia symptoms. These findings provide evidence of the scale’s criterion-related validity and support its potential utility in population-based sleep-health research. Brief summary Current Knowledge/Study Rationale The Ru-SATED assesses domains that conceptually overlap with insomnia symptoms, yet little is known about how well sleep-health scores capture insomnia symptoms. This study evaluated the criterion-related validity of the Ru-SATED scale by examining its ability to detect elevated insomnia symptom burden (ISI ≥10) in a large U.S. adult sample and explored whether performance varied by age or sex. Study Impact Ru-SATED scores demonstrated meaningful signal detection performance for identifying individuals with elevated insomnia symptoms, supporting the scale’s criterion-related validity and highlighting conceptual links between sleep health and insomnia symptoms. Exploratory subgroup analyses suggested demographic variability in performance, underscoring the need for special attention in unique populations. These findings support the use of Ru-SATED in population-based sleep-health research and clarify how sleep-health dimensions relate to insomnia symptoms.

Study Objectives. Emerging adults demonstrate heightened vulnerability to pre-sleep arousal due to pervasive electronic device use, heightened rumination, and higher overall anxiety. To address this concern, this study sought to assess interoceptive awareness, a non-judgmental and trusting attitude towards body sensations that may reduce pre-sleep arousal, as a protective factor against insomnia symptoms during young adulthood. Methods and Measures. We assessed the association between interoceptive awareness, pre-sleep arousal, and insomnia symptom severity using cross-sectional data from university students (N = 420) in the Mid-Atlantic United States. Participants completed the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness-2 (MAIA-2), Pre-sleep Arousal Scale, and the Insomnia Severity Index. Data were analyzed using hierarchical linear and logistic regressions and a mediation analysis. Results. The “not-distracting” factor emerged as the strongest interoceptive predictor of insomnia symptoms in emerging adults. When adjusting for mood and demographic covariates, not-distracting significantly predicted pre-sleep arousal (b* = -0.12, p < .001). In the mediation model, pre-sleep arousal (95% CI: -0.25, -0.11) mediated the association between not-distracting and insomnia symptoms. Not engaging in distraction from pain and discomfort was associated with lower insomnia symptom severity via lower levels of cognitive and physiological arousal before sleep. Conclusions. Interoceptive not-distracting and pre-sleep arousal may be important factors to consider in the treatment of sleep disturbance in this age group. Findings suggest that specific training in interoceptive capacities could be a valuable addition to preventive interventions for sleep health in young adults.