Earlier Parental set Bedtimes as a Protective Factor Against Depression and Suicidal Ideation

The relationships between parental set bedtimes, sleep duration, & depression were examined as a quasi-experiment to explore the potentially bidirectional relationship between short sleep duration & depression. A multivariate cross-sectional analysis of the ADD Health using logistic regression was conducted & included 15,659 adolescents in grades 7-12. Adolescents with parental set bedtimes of midnight or later were 24% more likely to suffer from depression & 20% more likely to have suicide ideation than adolescents with parent set bedtimes of 10:00 PM or earlier, after controlling for covariates. Results from the study provide new evidence to strengthen the argument that short sleep duration could play a role in the etiology of depression. (33 refs.) JA