Sleep Knowledge and Cognitions and Their Relation to Behavioural Sleep Indices

The aim of the present study was to examine a novel model of the causal relationships among dysfunctional sleep beliefs, repetitive negative thinking (RNT), sleep knowledge, sleep habits and sleep outcomes. Participants were 190 college students who completed baseline questionnaires and wore actigraphy for two nights. Path analysis was used to examine whether sleep habits, knowledge and beliefs and RNT predicted sleep onset latency (SOL), total sleep time (TST) and wake time after sleep onset (WASO). The hypothesised model provided adequate fit to the data with one area of potential model misspecification. The re-specified model provided significantly better fit to the data and predicted a significant but small amount of variability in behavioural indices of sleep. Findings demonstrate that cognitive aspects (e.g., RNT, dysfunctional sleep beliefs) predict sleep outcomes, providing support for treatment components of cognitive-behavioural therapy for insomnia. The lack of direct effects of sleep habits and knowledge on sleep outcomes confirms that interventions to improve sleep in college students likely need to go beyond addressing knowledge of recommended sleep habits.