Late bedtime, uncertainty stress among Chinese college students: impact on academic performance and self-rated health

ABSTRACT

This study aims to examine the relationship between uncertainty stress and late bedtime behaviour, and to explore their associations with self-rated health and self-reported academic performance. The participants were 11,954 students from 50 universities in China from a cross-sectional survey. College students’ bedtime, sleep duration, health status, and academic performance were assessed with a self-reported questionnaire. Uncertainty stress and general life stress were also measured by standard stress questionnaires. The logistic regression models and the path analysis were applied to explore the network relationships among these variables. Late bedtime prevalence among college students was 17.2% (95% C.I. 16.5%-17.9%). Gender, grade, monthly expenditure, and sleep duration were found to be related to the prevalence of late bedtime. Uncertainty stress was more influential on late bedtime and academic performance than general life stress. Students with higher uncertainty stress were 1.41 times more likely to experience late bedtime than those with lower uncertainty stress. Late bedtime was associated with involvement in adverse outcomes including worse self-rated health status and poor academic performance. Many college students were at risk for late bedtime, and those at risk may perceive high uncertainty stress and be at risk for academic failure and health problems. These findings underscore the significance of evaluating and monitoring bedtime in college students and the importance of intervention strategies that target bedtimes and uncertainty stress in an effort to reduce associated self-rated health outcomes and improve academic performance.

KEYWORDS:

• Uncertainty stress
• late bedtime
• short duration sleep
• academic performance
• self-rated health
• Chinese college students

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Major Project No. 7l490733]; Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province of China [2018A030307002].