Psychosocial Determinants of Sleep Behavior and Healthy Sleep Among Adolescents: A Two-Wave Panel Study

To date, it remains unknown which psychosocial determinants identified by several leading behavior change theories are associated with different sleep parameters among adolescents. Therefore, this study investigates whether changes in knowledge about healthy sleep, attitude toward healthy sleep and going to bed on time, self-efficacy to engage in healthy sleep behavior, perceived parental and peer norms, perceived barriers (e.g., worrying, fear of missing out), and perceived support (e.g., bedtime rules, encouragement) related to healthy sleep are associated with changes in adolescents’ sleep duration on school days and free days and sleep quality over a period of 1 year. Two-wave data of 1648 Flemish adolescents (mean age = 15.01, SD = 0.65, 46.3% female) were analyzed using linear models. Increased levels of parental social support, positive attitude towards and perceived advantages of healthy sleep, norm-knowledge, and perceived peer behavior were associated with sleep duration, with parental social support having the strongest association. Increased levels of perceived barriers were associated with decreased levels of sleep quality parameters, and increased levels of self-efficacy, positive attitude, and parental modeling were associated with improved sleep quality parameters, with perceived barriers having the strongest association. The current results indicate that behavior change theories are useful in the context of adolescent sleep behavior and suggest that perceived parental support (i.e., bedtime rules) and perceived barriers are most strongly associated with adolescents’ sleep duration and/or quality.