The Effects of Stressful Life Events and Negative Emotions in Relation to the Quality of Sleep: A Comparison between Chinese and Japanese Undergraduate Students and Chinese International Students

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of stressful life events (SLE) on the quality of sleep among university students. The subjects were 410 Chinese undergraduate students (CU), 201 Japanese undergraduate students (JU), and 111 Chinese international students living in Japan (CI). Four questionnaires were administered: (a) the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index; (b) the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21; (c) the Negative Life Events checklist; and (d) the Adolescent Self-Rating Life Events Checklist. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) indicated that the experience of SLE directly affects and decreases the quality of sleep, and also increases negative emotions thereby indirectly influencing sleep quality. The multiple-group SEM suggested that negative emotions elicited from SLE, influencing the quality of sleep, were higher for CU and CI than for JU. Thus, it could be suggested that measures to improve the quality of sleep need to be managed differently for Japanese and Chinese students.

Does parental phubbing aggravates adolescent sleep quality problems?

“…To our knowledge, the present study was the first to find a positive predictive effect of parental phubbing on adolescent sleep quality problems, validating research hypothesis H1. This result supports the theoretical model of the “stress – sleep” relationship ( Yan et al, 2010 ) and the argument that stress is one of the most common factors of sleep quality problems ( Liu et al, 2017 ; Yeung et al, 2017 ; Wang and Matsuda, 2021 ; Wang W. et al, 2022 ). For adolescent sleep quality, previous researches paid more attention to stressful life events ( Brand et al, 2011 ; Wang and Matsuda, 2021 ), especially academic stress ( Deng et al, 2021 ).…”

“…This result supports the theoretical model of the "stress -sleep" relationship (Yan et al, 2010) and the argument that stress is one of the most common factors of sleep quality problems (Liu et al, 2017;Yeung et al, 2017;Wang and Matsuda, 2021;Wang W. et al, 2022). For adolescent sleep quality, previous researches paid more attention to stressful life events (Brand et al, 2011;Wang and Matsuda, 2021), especially academic stress (Deng et al, 2021). Recently, some studies considered the COVID-19 pandemic and the policies to contain it as a stressor that adversely affected sleep quality (e.g., Wang W. et al, 2022).…”

“…For examples, a study by Zhao et al (2021) found that anxiety mediated the relationship between perceived stress and sleep quality among the non-diseased general public in China during the COVID-19 pandemic. A study by Wang and Matsuda (2021) found that negative emotions play a mediating role in stressful life events and sleep quality among Chinese and Japanese undergraduate students. These results suggest that previous studies mainly focused on negative emotions mediating the associations between stressors related to overt life events and sleep quality.…”

“…This argument is supported by some empirical studies. For example, a recent study has shown that stressful life events increases negative emotions thereby indirectly influencing sleep quality ( Wang and Matsuda, 2021 ). Compared to stressful life events, depressive emotional response was a stronger predictor for sleep disturbance among women with metastatic breast cancer ( Palesh et al, 2007 ).…”

“…Compared to stressful life events, depressive emotional response was a stronger predictor for sleep disturbance among women with metastatic breast cancer ( Palesh et al, 2007 ). Furthermore, numerous studies have agreed on the result that negative emotions (e.g., anxiety, depression) are important triggers of sleep quality problems ( Guo and Sun, 2016 ; Bjorøy et al, 2020 ; Wang and Matsuda, 2021 ; Wang W. et al, 2022 ). Therefore, the present study proposes hypothesis 2 (H2): Negative emotions mediate the association between parental phubbing and sleep quality problems.…”