Relationships between adolescents' test anxiety, stress and sleep

Objective. This study aims to investigate the relationship between adolescents' test anxiety, stress and different aspects of sleep.
Method. 175 adolescents (70.8% girls, mean age 15.14 years) participated in the study. Test anxiety, stress and chronic sleep reduction were assessed at baseline using self-reports. Sleep parameters were subjectively (sleep diaries) and objectively (actigraphy) measured during the following five school nights.
Results. Stress fully mediated the relationship between test anxiety and self-reported sleep quality and test anxiety and chronic sleep reduction. Test anxiety predicted shorter subjectively and objectively measured sleep time; however, stress did not mediate these relationships.
Conclusion. We demonstrate that test anxiety is related to adolescents’ stress, negatively influencing sleep quality and chronic sleep reduction, whereas the relationship between test anxiety and sleep time is not mediated by stress. Our results highlight the need to address subjective indices of sleep, especially sleep quality or chronic sleep reduction, rather than objective sleep efficiency or total sleep time when studying the effects of emotional problems on sleep.