0755 The Relationships Between Sleep Duration, Sleep Efficiency, and Blood Pressure During Late Adolescence

Abstract Introduction Elevated blood pressure (BP) is an important modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD), the leading cause of death in the world. Elevated BP in adolescence increases the risk for CVD in adulthood. Unfortunately, 1.3 million adolescents (ages 12 to 19) have extremely elevated blood pressure or hypertension (HTN). Evidence suggests that sleep duration is associated with HTN in adults, but less is known about these relationships during adolescence. Furthermore, there is limited research focused on specific developmental stages, particularly late adolescence, which is the last age group before adulthood. Also, there is a paucity of research on BP including other sleep variables like sleep efficiency. Therefore, the purpose of this secondary data analysis was to determine if sleep duration and sleep efficiency were associated with BP during late adolescence. Methods This secondary data analysis included older adolescents (16-18 years) who participated in the Cleveland Children’s Sleep and Health Study, a cohort study examining sleep disturbances and health outcomes. Height, weight, and BP (systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP)) were measured using standard clinical procedures. Objective sleep duration and sleep efficiency were measured by at least five days of actigraphy. Subjective sleep duration was averaged from daily self-report. The association was evaluated using Pearson correlations and multiple linear regressions. Results This sample included 259 adolescents (age 17.7±0.4, 63.3% White, 55.6% female). Pearson correlation analysis indicated a negative relationship between sleep efficiency and SBP (r = -0.210, p < 0.001) with a small-medium effect size (95% CI [-0.316, 0.098]). However, the negative correlation between sleep efficiency and SBP was no longer significant after controlling for assigned sex, race, and body mass index percentiles in a multiple linear regression model. Conclusion This secondary data analysis did not provide sufficient evidence on the associations between sleep duration and sleep efficiency with BP in older adolescents, possibly due to the homogenous sample with small variations in BP, sleep duration, and sleep efficiency. Therefore, there is a need for future studies including more heterogenous samples to evaluate the relationships between sleep and BP in this age group. Support (if any) 1st author - NHLBI T32HL105349 & NICHD 5T32HD101397-03