Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2011 Oct;71(4):250-5.
doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2011.03.011. Epub 2011 May 20.

Associations between sleep quality and anxiety and depression symptoms in a sample of young adult twins and siblings

Alice M Gregory  1 , Daniel J Buysse, Thomas A Willis, Fruhling V Rijsdijk, Barbara Maughan, Richard Rowe, Sally Cartwright, Nicola L Barclay, Thalia C Eley
Affiliations

Associations between sleep quality and anxiety and depression symptoms in a sample of young adult twins and siblings

Alice M Gregory et al. J Psychosom Res. 2011 Oct.

Abstract

Objectives: Little is known about the aetiology of the links between sleep disturbance and anxiety and depression symptoms. The aim of this study was to estimate genetic and environmental influences on these associations.

Methods: Questionnaires were completed by 1556 young adults from twin and sibling pairs (61.5% female).

Results: Sleep disturbance was moderately correlated with symptoms of anxiety (r=.39) and depression (r=.50). There was substantial overlap between genes influencing sleep disturbance and those influencing symptoms of anxiety (rA=.58) and depression (rA=.68). Overall, the associations between sleep and symptoms of both anxiety and depression were mainly due to genes (explaining 74% and 58% of the covariances respectively), with the remainder due to nonshared environmental factors.

Conclusions: Moderate phenotypic and genetic correlations between the phenotypes support the view that sleep disturbance is related to the presence of various psychiatric difficulties, but also warrants independent consideration and treatment.

PubMed Disclaimer

Publication types