| Poster | Poster Session 05 Program Schedule
02/15/2024
02:30 pm - 03:45 pm
Room: Majestic Complex (Posters 61-120)
Poster Session 05: Neuropsychiatry | Addiction/Dependence | Stress/Coping | Emotional/Social Processes
Final Abstract #78
A Strengths-Based Approach to Sleep Disturbance and Posttraumatic Stress: Examining Engagement Coping Strategies
Caterina Obenauf, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, United States
Gina Owens, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, United States
Amber Rochette, Knox Neuropsychology, Knoxville, United States
Category: Sleep and Sleep Disorders
Keyword 1: sleep
Keyword 2: post-traumatic stress disorder
Objective:
Sleep disturbance often coexists with posttraumatic stress (PTS), potentially due to common underlying mechanisms. Examining sleep disturbance, with its profound impact on cognitive functioning and psychopathology, may provide insight into the complex relationship between psychological trauma and neuropsychological outcomes. Positive coping strategies like engagement coping are understudied in sleep disturbance among trauma-exposed individuals. Engagement coping include utilizing skills such as cognitive restructuring, problem solving, expressing emotions, and social support. This presentation reports on a study utilizing a strengths-based approach to examine positive, engagement coping strategies in the context of cooccurring PTS and sleep disturbance among trauma-exposed emerging adults.
Participants and Methods:
A sample of 362 undergraduate students from a large, public university (Mage = 18.91) were screened for trauma exposure before completing an online survey. Participants reported demographic information (age, race, gender identity, and socioeconomic status) and completed measures of trauma history (Trauma History Screen; THS), PTS (PCL-5; PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 with Criterion A), sleep disturbance (Patient Health Questionnaire 15; PHQ 15), and engagement coping strategies (Coping Strategies Inventory; CSI). Hierarchical linear regression analyses were utilized to assess for whether engagement coping strategies (cognitive restructuring, problem solving, social support, expressing emotions) predict sleep disturbance above the effects of PTS.
Results:
Sleep disturbance severity was regressed onto PTS severity; this model showed that more severe PTS significantly predicted more severe sleep disturbance, F(1, 361) = 82.172, p <.001, adjusted R2 = .183. Adding engagement coping strategies as predictors of sleep disturbance was significant, F(5, 357) = 20.372, p < .001, ΔR2 = .028. Greater use of cognitive restructuring significantly predicted less severe sleep disturbance above the effect of PTS in the hypothesized direction, t(357) = -2.158, p = .035. Unexpectedly, greater use of problem solving significantly predicted more severe sleep disturbance, t(357) = 2.681, p = .008, and expressing emotions and social support did not significantly predict sleep disturbance (p = .137 and p = .300 respectively).
Conclusions:
Findings suggest that engagement coping strategies, particularly cognitive restructuring, contribute to sleep disturbance among trauma-exposed individuals. Given that problem solving contributed to worse outcomes, there is a need for further research to gain a more nuanced understanding of the specific effects of various positive coping skills on sleep disturbance. Overall findings underscore the significance of positive coping mechanisms in ameliorating sleep disturbance among trauma-exposed individuals and emphasize the potential therapeutic value of specifically targeting cognitive restructuring interventions for improved sleep outcomes in this population.
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