Abstract
Abstract Introduction Sleep disturbances are linked to detrimental health outcomes, including mental health and cardiovascular health. A bidirectional relationship between depression and sleep health is well documented in the literature. However, little is known regarding which sleep health dimensions is associated with depression. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between depression and multiple sleep health dimensions; more specifically sleep duration and insomnia symptoms among US adults from January to December 2020. Methods We analyzed data from the 2020 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) conducted among a representative sample of 31, 568 adults. First, we used binary logistic regression models to examine the association between self-reported diagnosis of depression and insomnia variables. Then, a multinomial regression assessed the association between depression symptoms and sleep duration. Our models statistically adjusted for sociodemographic factors (age, sex, marital status), health risk behaviors (smoking and alcohol use status), race/ethnicity, general health condition. Results The mean age was 53.50 [±18.04] years. Women represented 54% of the sample and twice as likely to report depression symptoms (67.51 vs 32.49, p< 0.001) relative to men. Binary logistic regression indicated that participants with symptoms of depression had higher odds of having difficulty staying asleep (OR:1.58; 95%CI: 1.43-1.74, p<.0001), difficulty falling asleep (OR:1.46; 95%CI: 1.30-1.62, p<.0001), and feeling unrested (OR:1.70; 95%CI: 1.50-1.93, p<.0001) respectively. Multinomial logistic regression showed that participants with symptoms of depression reported higher odds of having both short sleep (≤ 6 hours) (OR: 1.10; 95% CI: 1.0-1.21, p=0.0424) and long sleep (> 9 hours) (OR: 1.72; 95% CI: 1.50- 2.0, p<.0001). Conclusion Our research is among the first to confirm strong associations between depression and several dimensions of sleep in the US general population during US COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings underline the importance of sleep health in treating depression as the nation battles the current mental health crisis. Support (if any) Funding sources: R01HL152453-01 R01HL142066, R01HL095799, RO1MD004113