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Agnesa Idrizi, Adisa Salihu, Norik Zogjani, Redon Rushiti

Psychology
11/08

The Impact of Anxiety on Sleep Quality Among College Students: A Case Study of RIT Kosovo

Students

In modern society, where mental disorders are becoming more and more widespread, it

seems rather interesting to discuss the relationship between anxiety and sleeping disorders. A lot

of people tend to struggle with sleepless nights on a daily basis, contrary to other people who feel

peace and quietness at night they tend to have a pile of thoughts, worries, and sleepless hours. In

this study we focus on college students in RIT Kosovo, and focuses on if the levels of anxiety

have any effect on sleeping troubles. “Anxiety disorders (separation anxiety disorder, selective

mutism, specific phobias, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, agoraphobia, and generalised

anxiety disorder) are common and disabling conditions that mostly begin during childhood,

adolescence, and early adulthood. “(Craske & Stein, 2016, p. 3048). In other words, this gives a

simple look into what anxiety disorders are, saying that they are common, can be severely

impairing, and are usually first diagnosed in children, teens, or young adults. They are separation

anxiety, social anxiety, panic disorder, agoraphobia, generalized anxiety disorder and many

others and all these disorders are known to severely limit one’s daily activities, but we will be

focusing on anxiety disorders in general. According to Craske & Stein “Individuals with anxiety

disorders are excessively fearful, anxious, or avoidant of perceived threats in the environment

(eg, social situations or unfamiliar locations) or internal to oneself (eg, unusual bodily

sensations)”(2016, p. 3048). In other words, they explain how one can have symptoms of

anxiety. “Sleep disorders

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are conditions that disturb your normal sleep patterns. There are more than 80 different sleep

disorders. Some major types include: Insomnia, Apnea, Hypersomnia, Parasomnia“ (Altevogt &

Colten, 2006).In other words, this are some types of sleeping disorders which we will be

focusing in sleeping disorders in general. “To get a better view for our analysis we need to look

at the cause of these sleeping problems/disorders. There are different causes for different sleep

disorders, including: Other conditions, such as heart disease, lung disease, nerve disorders than

we have mental illnesses, including depression and anxiety and genetics. Sometimes the cause

can be unknown as well. Following the cause we then have the symptoms that help us detect a

sleeping disorder. These symptoms can vary from: You regularly take more than 30 minutes

each night to fall asleep, You regularly wake up several times each night and then have trouble

falling back to sleep, or you wake up too early in the morning, You often feel sleepy during the

day, take frequent naps, or fall asleep at the wrong times during the day, You have vivid,

dreamlike experiences”(MedlinePlus, n.d.).

The research question we want to elaborate on - Do people with elevated levels of

anxiety tend to have higher chances of sleep trouble? It is important to have this understanding of

this relationship for developing targeted interventions that can improve sleep health and, by

extension, overall mental health.

This particular study has 4 hypothesizes-

1. Students with mild anxiety have sleeping troubles

2. Students with mild anxiety have no sleeping troubles

3. Students with medium anxiety have sleeping troubles

4. Students with medium anxiety have no sleeping troubles

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Let's get a better insight into how anxiety and sleep disorders are connected. According to

Altevogt and Colten authors of the book “Sleep Disorder and Sleep Deprivation” they conducted

that “Another study, which followed 1,007 young adults at a health maintenance organization for

3.5 years, found that a history of insomnia at baseline not only predicted new onset depression,

but also other psychiatric disorders (any anxiety disorder, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, and nicotine

dependence).”(81) This study underlines the significance of early intervention into sleep

disorders because they may be indicators or causal factors of major future psychological

disorders. To get a better comparison between 2 research studies on sleep

troubles, we looked into what Park conducted with his study-The purpose of this study was to

evaluate the current level of sleep quality among Korean middle-school students using the

Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and to analyze the factors influencing sleep quality. The

study used a descriptive cross-sectional design and a self-report questionnaire. The participants

were 744 middle-school students. The questionnaire included the PSQI and health-related

questions. The results they concluded were-The global PSQI score was 4.21, which indicated

good sleep quality. The major factors that were associated with the sleep quality of middle-

school students were the number of diseases they had been diagnosed with (β=.54, p=.001) and

atopic dermatitis (β=.32, p=.001). In addition, asthma and the frequency of hospital admissions

were significant factors influencing each component of the PSQI. The findings from this study

suggest that sleep quality was associated with several health-related factors. Thus, nurses, school

nurses, and nursing researchers may need to assess the health-related factors associated with

adolescents’ sleep quality as part of efforts to improve their sleep quality.

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The Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7) which is a self assessment scale used

to measure the frequency of seven anxiety symptoms experienced in the past two weeks(Spitzer

et al.,2006) and the Sleep Health Index (SHI) is a questionnaire consisting of 18 self-assessment

items that measure seven components of sleep disorder(Liu and Tang,1996) will be used in this

quantitative study to evaluate the connection between anxiety and sleep disturbances. Twenty

students from RIT Kosovo—ten male and ten female—will be included in the sample. An online

poll evaluating anxiety and sleep quality will be used to gather data. While correlation analysis

will look\ at the connection between anxiety levels and sleep problems, descriptive statistics will

provide an overview of the results. Although there may not be much room for wider

generalization, the sample size permits targeted, early discoveries.

Policies of ethical practice will be complied during this research with a view of

respecting participant confidentiality and safeguarding their information. No personal data will

be collected, and all data will be aggregated to ensure that participants’ identities are not

identifiable. The information obtained in the course of the study will be generalized, and only

those people who are involved in evaluating the collected materials will be granted access to

them. Before engaging in the study all the students and their parents will be educated on the

purpose of the study, procedures, any associated risks and the benefits that are accrued from the

study. They will also be made aware that it is their choice to be in the study and they are free to

pull out at some point in the study with no repercussions. This also ensures that participant’s

rights are respected, and their welfare protected from the time the study is planned until the last

results are obtained.

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This study’s expected findings will extend current knowledge of how distinct sorts of

anxiety might interact with sleep in terms of intensity, duration, or other variables. Particularly,

we assume that people with mild anxiety might not get practically any sleep problems, and thus,

constantly have regular sleep-wake cycles and relatively non-interfered nights. On the other

hand, the targets for moderate anxiety levels will experience impaired ability to sleep, this could

be inability to fall asleep or have a prolonged period of sleep or poor sleep-wake cycle. Such

results could identify an upward trend between the level of anxiety intensity and the level of

sleep disruption; it is expected that low anxiety would not cause excessive disregard for sleep

quality, whereas more severe anxiety would necessarily bring more numerous and diverse sleep

disturbances. Thus, understanding these differences will help the study to reveal patterns that can

be used for the creation of interventions related to various degrees of anxiety. Further, self-rated

environmental stressors, self-diagnosed chronic diseases, and lifestyle factors may also moderate

the interaction between anxiety and sleep disturbance, especially for high anxious individuals.

Finally, this work is to call for attention to the combined treatment of sleep quality and mental

health because sleep quality could be a good predictor of mental health, and more research

studies should focus on helping the targeted population receive the right and unified therapeutic

interventions.
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Works Cited

Altevogt, Bruce M., and Harvey R. Colten, editors. Sleep Disorders and Sleep Deprivation: An

Unmet Public Health Problem. 1st ed., National Academies Press, 2006. ProQuest Ebook

Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rit/detail.action?docID=3378140.

Craske, Michelle G., and Murray B. Stein. "Anxiety." The Lancet, vol. 388, no. 10063, 2016, pp.

3048-3059. ProQuest, https://ezproxy.rit.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-

journals/anxiety/docview/1852978446/se-2. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(16)30381-

6.

Hieu, Truong Hong, et al. "Therapeutic Efficacy and Safety of Chamomile for State Anxiety,

Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Insomnia, and Sleep Quality: A Systematic Review and Meta-

Analysis of Randomized Trials and Quasi-Randomized Trials."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31006899/

MedlinePlus. "Sleep Disorders." U.S. National Library of Medicine, U.S. National Library of

Medicine, https://medlineplus.gov/sleepdisorders.html.

Park, Bu Kyung. "The Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and Associated Factors in Middle-

School Students: A Cross-Sectional Study." Child Health Nursing Research, vol. 26, no. 1, 2020,

pp. 1-8. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35004450/

Seighali, Niloofar, et al. "The Global Prevalence of Depression, Anxiety, and Sleep Disorder

Among Patients Coping with Post COVID-19 Syndrome (Long COVID): A Systematic Review

and Meta-Analysis." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38321404/

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Spitzer, Robert L., et al. "A Brief Measure for Assessing Generalized Anxiety Disorder: The

GAD-7." Archives of Internal Medicine, vol. 166, no. 10, 2006, pp. 1092-1097. DOI:

10.1001/archinte.166.10.1092. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16717171/