Starting a Romantic Relationship, Breakups, and Sleep: A Longitudinal Study of Chinese Adolescents

ABSTRACT

Background

Epidemiological data on the association between romantic experiences and sleep in adolescents are limited. This study examined the associations of starting a romantic relationship (SRR) and romantic breakups with insomnia symptoms and sleep duration in adolescents.

Methods

A total of 7,072 Chinese adolescents were surveyed in November–December 2015 and 1 year later. A self-administered questionnaire was used to assess SRR, romantic breakups, sleep duration, insomnia symptoms, depressive symptoms, substance use, and demographics.

Results

The mean age of the sample was 14.58 (SD = 1.46) years and half were female. SRR only, breakups only, and both (SRR + breakups) in the past year were reported by 7.0%, 8.4%, and 15.4% of the sample, respectively. At the baseline and 1-year follow-up, 15.2% and 14.7% of the sample had insomnia symptoms and 47.7% and 42.1% reported short sleep duration (<7 h/night), respectively. After adjusting for depressive symptoms, substance use, and demographics, SRR and breakups were significantly associated with 35–45% increased odds of insomnia symptoms at baseline. SRR + breakups were significantly associated with short sleep duration (OR = 1.28, 95%CI = 1.05–1.56). SRR (OR = 1.61, 95%CI = 1.16–2.23) and breakups (OR = 1.43, 95%CI = 1.04–1.96) were significantly associated with increased odds of incident insomnia symptoms at 1-year follow-up. These associations were stronger in younger adolescents (<15 years) than in older adolescents (≥15 years), especially in girls.

Conclusions

The findings suggest that SRR and breakups are associated with insomnia symptoms and short sleep duration, underscoring the importance of romantic relationships education and management of romantic stress for healthy sleep especially in early adolescent girls.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Lijin County Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Zoucheng City Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and Yanggu County Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shandong Province, China, and all participating class teachers for their help with data collection and all students for their voluntarily participating in the study. We would also like to thank the graduate students at Shandong University School of Public Health for their participation in data collection and data entry and Dr. Jenn-Yun Tein at Arizona State University for her help with statistical analysis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded in part for data collection by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 81573233).