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Abstract
Young adults are the fasting growing but least understood at-risk group reporting poor sleep. Stress and developmental processes related to the transition to college may negatively alter sleep quality and sleep patterns that continue into adulthood and contribute to poor health outcomes. The current project tested a conceptual model of associations among perpetuating factors hypothesized to influence the relationship between stress and poor sleep. Self-reported measures of perceived stress, sleep quality, cognitive-affective states, and pre-sleep cognitive, somatic and behavioral processes were administered at two time points, baseline (P1) and 30 days later (P2). A total of 142 non-clinical, college-aged young adults completed the measures at both time points. Results demonstrated that a majority of participants reported poor-quality sleep at baseline and thirty days later. Age, female gender, and employment were significantly associated with poor sleep quality at P2. Perceived stress had a significant direct and indirect effect on sleep quality at P2 through pre-sleep arousal. Emotion dysregulation, ruminative thinking, sleep-related worry, and poor sleep hygiene were associated with higher levels of pre-sleep arousal. Beliefs and attitudes about sleep did not contribute to self-reported sleep arousal. Contrary to expectations, the relationship between perceived stress and pre-sleep arousal was not moderated by maladaptive beliefs about sleep. Furthermore, sleep-related worry and emotion dysregulation did not moderate the mediational effects of pre-sleep arousal on poor sleep quality. These results parallel findings from studies exploring associations among individuals with clinical insomnia diagnoses, as well as those including objective measures of sleep. These findings may be used to inform the development of brief interventions to prevent and treat poor sleep in college-aged young adults.