(062) Do Polish Adolescents Sexual Minorities have Poorer Sleep? - Analysis from POLKA 18 Pilot Study

Abstract

Introduction Sleep duration might be affected by many mental states that are a result of discrimination, lack of social acceptance and stressful lifestyle. Sexual minorities in unfriendly environments are at risk of the aforementioned conditions and significantly affect their sleep therefore interfere with their circadian rhythm, health outcomes and quality of life. Objectives This study aims to estimate the association between duration of sleep among Polish adolescent sexual minorities groups. Methods The data on the level of sleep were retrieved from POLKA 18 study, funded by ESC, which is a youth-led cross-sectional analytical study of Polish adolescents. A paper-based self-reported questionnaire, building up on the interdisciplinary model of holistic approaches in adolescent gynaecology, has been used to collect data from schools in five Polish regions. The questionnaires were distributed in the schools during the time of April-June 2019 by local research associates, who are medical students. The obtained data has been analysed using STATA 16. Results We received 650 results and included 632 in our final analysis. We have asked our respondents a question on which sexual orientation they identify with and 2.6% of them declared being attracted to people from the same sex, 4.27% declared as bisexual, 0.8% asexual. Overall, 41.3% of the respondents reported sleeping less than 6 hours a night. It seems that there is a strong association between the length of sleep and sexual orientation with LGBA youth being less likely to reach recommended 7 hours of sleep a night. 41.2% who identified as gay/lesbians and 40.7% who identified as bisexual reported having less than 7 hours of sleep duration in comparison to 60.2% of their heterosexual counterparts. (p<0.001). Conclusions American National Sleep Foundation recommends 7-9 hours of sleep for young adults aged 18-25 (National Sleep Foundation, 2015) and our study reports that youth identified as sexual minorities are less likely to reach the recommended hours of sleep in comparison to their heterosexual peers. Although ourstudy focused solely on the duration of sleep, other studies reported a higher prevalence of many other sleep disturbances, such as insomnia that has strong correlation with stress levels and mental health problems (Galinsky et al., 2018; Fricke et al., 2017; Chen et al., 2017). Moreover, other reports from Korea and China show that those who had shorter sleep duration were more likely to have depressive symptoms and suicidal tendencies (Li et al., 2017; Lee et al., 2017). In multiple studies, sexual minorities have reported more prevalence of mental health problems. Therefore, appropriate sleeping hygiene should be accounted as one of the important factors and strategies to improve mental health among adolescents, especially those identified as part of sexual minorities. Disclosure No.