ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Sleep Disorders
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1609865
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Advance on Sleep Disorder: Mechanisms and InterventionsView all 3 articles
A U-shaped relationship between nighttime sleep duration and newonset emotional, nervous, or psychiatric problems: a prospective cohort study from China
Provisionally accepted
- 1Nantong University, Nantong, China
- 2Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong, Jiangsu Province, China
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Introduction: Sleep plays an important role in maintaining physical and mental health, and it is important to study the relationship between sleep duration and new-onset emotional, nervous, or psychiatric problems (ENP).Methods: A prospective cohort study was performed based on data from Wave 2011, 2013,2015 and 2018 in the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) databases. Sleep duration was assessed by self-reported nighttime sleep and daytime nap duration. Self-reported diagnoses were used to identify the new-onset emotional, nervous, or psychiatric problems (ENP). We used different logistic regression models to explore the potential effect of sleep duration on ENP and performed mediation analyses to assess the mediating role of BMI, hypertension, and diabetes(DM).Results: Among 10,225 participants, 221 (2.16%) developed ENP during follow-up. The mean nighttime sleep duration was significantly shorter in the ENP group than in the non-ENP group. A restricted cubic spline regression model revealed a U-shaped relationship between nighttime sleep duration and ENP risk, with the lowest risk at 6.5 hours. Mediation analyses showed that BMI, hypertension, and diabetes did not significantly mediate this association (P values for ACME were all greater than 0.05).Conclusion: A U-shaped association was observed between nighttime sleep duration and new-onset ENP, suggesting that both insufficient and excessive sleep may increase the risk of ENP. These findings highlight the importance of maintaining an optimal sleep duration for mental well-being.
Keywords: sleep duration, ENP(new-onset emotional, nervous, or psychiatric problems), CHARLS, Mediating effect, prospective cohort study
Received: 11 Apr 2025; Accepted: 08 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wu, Wang, Zhao and Ni. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Haosheng Ni, Affiliated Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong, 226001, Jiangsu Province, China
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