Introduction
Sleep in ASD
Sleep and Mental Health
Sleep and Cognitive Abilities
The Present Study
Method
Participants
ASD (n = 220) | Min–max | GP (n = 2200) | Min–max | Group differences (p values) | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Female | N = 66 (30%) | – | N = 662 (30.1%) | – | – |
In employment | 63.18% | – | 70.04% | – | .04 |
Age | 59.34 (7.76) | 45–75 | 59.08 (8.26) | 45–78 | .65 |
BMI | 27.19 (5.15) | 18.1–44.3 | 27.22 (4.43) | 16.6–50.1 | .94 |
Alcohol intake | – | – | .98 | ||
Daily or almost daily (%) | 17.7 | 18.5 | |||
Three/four times a week (%) | 20.5 | 21.3 | |||
Once/twice a week (%) | 16.4 | 16.5 | |||
One to three times a month (%) | 15.9 | 16.7 | |||
Special occasions only (%) | 13.6 | 12.2 | |||
Never (%) | 15.9 | 14.8 | |||
Ethnicity | – | – | .96 | ||
White/British/Irish (%) | 95 | 94.6 | |||
Black (Caribbean) (%) | 0.5 | 0.9 | |||
Asian (Chinese/Indian) (%) | 1.8 | 2.0 | |||
Mixed race (%) | 0.5 | 0.6 | |||
Other (%) | 2.3 | 1.9 | |||
Smoking | – | – | .88 | ||
Current (%) | 11.4 | 11.4 | |||
Never (%) | 61.4 | 69.8 | |||
Previous (%) | 27.3 | 28.77 | |||
Subjective sleep (n h/night) | 7.28 (1.42) | 4–16 | 7.11 (1.17) | 3–20 | .096 |
N = 83 | N = 824 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Objective sleep | |||||
Sleep duration in minutes (5 day average) | 419.97 (67.62) | 154.57–584.67 | 429.09 (59.93) | 27–623.5 | .24 |
Sleep efficiency (5 day average) | 0.72 (.09) | .30–.93 | 0.75 (.08) | .28–1.0 | .03 |
Night activity (5 day average) | 9.53 (4.43) | 3.35–31.07 | 10.02 (6.16) | 2.43–76.14 | .36 |
Night-to-night duration variability | 16.75 (19.55) | 3.27–121.35 | 13.46 (13.63) | .14–258.99 | .13 |
Cognitive ability | |||||
Speed of processing | 20.26 (5.88) | 2–32 | 21.11 (5.30) | 0–38 | .28 |
Verbal short-term memory | 7.21 (1.59) | 2–11 | 7.08 (1.37) | 2–11 | .52 |
Educational attainment | |||||
College/university degree or higher | 54.10% | – | 46.97% | – | .30 |
In employment | 68.85% | – | 76.03% | – | .22 |
Wellbeing and mental health | |||||
Wellbeing+—generally happiness | 3.77 (1.11) | 1–6 | 4.51 (.80) | 1–6 | < .001 |
Wellbeing+—happiness about health | 3.73 (1.26) | 1–6 | 4.32 (1.01) | 1–6 | < .001 |
Wellbeing+—life is meaningful | 2.95 (1.10) | 1–5 | 3.60 (.96) | 1–5 | < .001 |
Positive history of lifetime MH illness | 79.0% | – | 41.0% | – | < .001 |
Measures
Sleep measure | Definition |
---|---|
Subjective sleep duration | Self-reported response to “About how many hours of sleep do you get in every 24 h? (please include naps” |
Accelerometer measures | |
Sleep duration | The sum of periods of at least five minutes with no change larger than 5° associated with the z axis of the accelerometer (in minutes) |
Sleep efficiency | Percent time asleep, calculated as sleep duration (see above) divided by the time elapsed between the start of the first sleep bout and the end of the last sleep bout |
Night activity | Activity during night hours (in milligravity units) |
Night to night variability in sleep duration | (Standard deviation of sleep duration across the nights of measurement/average sleep duration across the nights of measurement) * 100 |