| dc.description.abstract | Adolescents show a delayed sleep phase related to biological and psychosocial factors, leading
to a contrast between sleep habits and morning school hours, which leads to sleep deprivation
and irregularity. This in turn can harm their cognitive and school performance and overall health.
Attention and memory may be among the impaired cognitive processes. School commuting
time and the degree of urbanization from where they live are related factors. This study aims to
analyze the relationship of the duration of commuting to school with the sleep-wake cycle and
cognitive performance of adolescents, considering the school shift and the level of urbanization.
A total of 291 students participated in the study (15.4 ± 0.9 years; 59.5% women), recruited
from two units of a technical high school in RN: Natal, metropolitan region, and Lajes, less
urbanized area. Sleep habits were assessed using the questionnaires: “Health and Sleep”, the
Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, the Pediatric Daytime Sleepiness Scale, and sleep diaries with
Maldonado Sleepiness Scale completed over 10 days. In this interval, from Tuesday to Friday,
the Continuous Performance Task (assessing attention) and the Sternberg Task (working
memory) were applied. Higher commuting times were associated with waking up (B=-0.65,
p<0.001) and going to bed earlier in weekdays (B=-0.35; p=0.03) and weekends (B=-0.38;
p=0.04), having less total time in bed in 24 hours in weekdays (B=-0.31; p=0.04), greater
irregularities in wakeup times (B=0.19; p =0.04), time in bed at night (B=0.45; p=0.03) and in
24 hours (B=0.48; p=0.02), worse sleep quality (B=0.02; p=0.01), lower percentage of correct
responses for memory in 5-digit (“no”) lists (B= -0.07; p=0.03). Morning shift students woke
up (B=-163; p<0.001) and went to bed earlier in weekdays (B=-54; p<0.001), had shorter time
in bed at night (B=-111; p<0.001) and in 24h (B=-97; p<0.001) in weekdays, greater
irregularities in wakeup times (B=36; p<0.001), in time in bed at night (B=118; p<0.001) and
in 24h (B=105; p<0.001), higher levels of social jetlag (B=26; p<0.001) and daytime sleepiness
(B=1,3; p=0,03). Individuals residing in the less urbanized region went to bed earlier in
weekdays (B=-23; p<0.001), showed longer times in bed in 24 hours in weekdays (B=18;
p=0.04) and weekends (B=20; p=0,05), lower sleepiness upon waking up in weekdays (B=-0,7;
p=0,002), lower percentage of correct answers in tonic alertness (B=-2.46; p=0.03), phasic
alertness (B=-5,39; p=0.04) and selective attention (B=-5.1; p=0.0), but shorter reaction times
for correct responses of phasic alertness (B=-39; p=0.007). Thus, the hypothesis that school
commuting time, as part of school routine, and the degree of urbanization have an impact on
sleep habits and working memory in adolescents is confirmed, while attention was only related
to the degree of urbanization. | |
