Weekday-to-weekend sleep duration difference among young adults and outcomes related to health and academic performance

Abstract

Abstract Background To examine whether weekday-to-weekend sleep duration difference (WWD) and specific WWD patterns are associated with mental and somatic health and academic performance in a large student population. Methods This study utilized cross-sectional data from the SHoT-2018 survey which includes responses from 50,054 full-time university/college students in Norway. Participants completed online questionnaires and reported sleep duration separately for weekdays and weekends. Medium sleep duration was defined as 7 to 9 hours, short sleep duration as < 7 hours and long sleep duration as > 9 hours. Regression analyses were used to examine whether the degree and patterns of WWD was associated with health-related outcomes and academic performance. Results The mean WWD was 1 hour and 19 minutes. WWD was positively associated with higher odds of overweight/obesity, dissatisfaction with life, psychological distress, somatic burden and failed study exam. Further, short sleepers (on weekdays or weekends, or both) generally had higher odds of overweight/obesity, dissatisfaction with life, psychological distress, somatic burden and failed study exam, compared to medium sleepers. The odds of students reporting unfavorably on the outcomes were particularly high for those who slept short on both weekdays and weekends, while those who slept short on weekdays seemed to benefit from sleeping longer ("catching up") on weekends. Conclusions Overall, WWD was associated with adverse health outcomes for students. Short sleep duration both on weekday and weekend was associated with the most detrimental outcomes in terms of health and academic performance, while sleeping in on weekends may alleviate some of the detriments.