Sleep disorders are the second most common cause of depression in the United States. When prolonged, sleep disorders not only cause psychiatric disorders, but also hypertension, heart attacks and strokes. Currently, there are no studies confirming the relationship between sleep disorders and depression using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data from 2017-2018. The aim of this research was to determine if there is a relationship that exists between depression and sleep disorders in adults aged 20+ from the 2017-2018 NHANES data cycle. There were 3,935 participants in the study. 9 variables were explored, including 7 potential confounding variables: age, sex, race/ethnicity, physical activity level, socioeconomic status, prescription medication usage, and education level. About 39% of participants reported sleep disorders while 8.6% experienced depressive feelings. The p-value for the relationship between sleep disorders causing depression was < 0.01, suggesting significant difference in depressive symptoms between those with and without sleep disorder. The binary logistic regression found that the association between sleep disorders and depression alone was 0.21, while the association taking the confounding variables into consideration was 0.25. Compared to those without sleep disorders, those reporting sleep disorders had 75% lower odds of experiencing depressive symptoms. Moving forward, further research on specific sleeping disorders, such as insomnia, hypersomnia, and sleep apnea, to name a few, and depressive outcomes may be studied to determine which sleeping disorder causes a greater amount of depression in the participants. This work is relevant to our future careers in the public health sector, as depression and sleep disorders are both important health topics that need to be addressed in the public health field.
Author(s): Abby Gerold, Public Health and Strategic Communication Major
Sarah Quinlivan, Public Health and Kinesiology Major
Advisor(s): Saruna Ghimire, Department of Sociology and Gerontology
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