Relationship between insomnia and alcohol use in adolescents

Insomnia linked to alcohol-use among adolescents, study shows

Insomnia is linked to frequency of alcohol use among early adolescents, according to new Rutgers University-Camden research.

"Parents, educators, and therapists should consider insomnia to be a risk marker for alcohol use, and alcohol use a risk marker for insomnia, among early adolescents," writes Rutgers-Camden researcher Naomi Marmorstein in the study, published recently in the journal Addictive Behaviors.

Marmorstein, a professor of psychology at Rutgers-Camden, examined the associations between alcohol use and four sleep-related issues: initial insomnia; daytime sleepiness; sleep irregularity, defined as the difference in weekday and weekend bedtimes; and disturbed sleep, characterized as nightmares, snoring, sleepwalking, wetting the bed, and talking in sleep.

When sleep problems were found to be associated with frequency of alcohol use, she examined whether symptoms of mental health problems or levels of parental monitoring accounted for these associations.

The research focused on seventh- and eighth-grade students participating in the Camden Youth Development Study, an initiative funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health. The study examines the development of mental health problems and resilience among at-risk youth.

Youth completed questionnaires in the classroom that asked how long it took for them to fall asleep, what times they usually went to bed on a weekday and on the weekend or vacation night, how often they experienced sleep disturbances, and whether they ever fell asleep in class or had trouble staying awake after school. They were also asked the frequency of any alcohol use in the previous four months. Read more...

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