Associations between social jetlag and mental health in young people: A systematic review

ABSTRACT

Adolescence and early adulthood (collectively categorized as “young people”) is a transitional period associated with a number of key physiological, social and psychological changes. Sleep difficulties, notable in this age group, may adversely affect physical and mental health. Of interest is the impact of the natural shift in young people towards a more evening-type sleep pattern (chronotype), whilst social constraints encourage early waking to fit with school/work timings. This leads to a misalignment in sleep timing between weekdays and weekends, known as social jetlag, which may contribute to emerging mental health difficulties seen during this age group. A systematic literature review was undertaken to investigate the association between social jetlag and mental health outcomes.

Systematic searching of electronic databases (The Cochrane Library; PsycINFO; CINAHL; Scopus; and PubMed), grey literature and review of reference lists identified seven studies which assessed associations between social jetlag and mental health outcomes in young people. Quality appraisal was completed using the Appraisal Tool for Cross-Sectional Studies.

Findings appeared equivocal; however significant associations were revealed with social jetlag associated with clinical depression and seasonal depression, in female participants and high latitude regions. Quality of included studies was moderate (10–13 criteria met). A lack of homogeneity between study methodologies precluded the conduct of a meta-analysis.

The ambiguous results found may result from confounding factors including non-comparable methods of measuring social jetlag and mental health both in this age group and the selected studies. Future research should address a lack of homogeneity through the development of an interdisciplinary core outcome set, and agreement on a standardized measure and calculation for social jetlag.

KEYWORDS:

• Sleep
• chronobiology
• social jetlag
• mental health
• young people
• adolescence

Declaration of Interest

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Notes

1. There are a range of terms used to describe people in this age group. The World Health Organisation defines “adolescence” between the ages of 10–19 years old; whilst the United Nations refers to “youth” as being aged 15 to 24. Both organisations use “young people” to describe the combination of these age groups (10–24 years old), where a reliance on parents continues alongside a shift towards independence (World Health Organisation 1999). This will be the definition used in this review.

2. Exceptions to this were questions 13 and 19, where reverse scoring was used (Wong et al. 2018).

3. Figure excludes Mathew et al. (2018) data as unavailable at the time of review.