The mediating role of mood in the relationship between perseverative cognition, sleep and subjective health complaints in music students

Abstract

Objective: Subjective health complaints (SHC) are frequent in musicians. These complaints may be particularly distressing in this population because they are performance relevant. This paper aims at testing a model positing that (a) perseverative cognition (PC) predicts sleep duration/quality, (b) sleep duration/quality predicts SHC and (c) mood is a mediator of these associations.

Design: Participants were 72 music students (mean age (SD): 22.7 (3.0) years), and the assessment period consisted of seven consecutive days, with a solo performance on the fifth day.

Main outcome measures: Self-reported total sleep time (TST) and sleep quality were assessed 30 min after wake-up, and objective TST/sleep quality were assessed with an actigraphy watch. PC and mood were measured five times a day. Daily SHC were assessed at 9 p.m.

Results: PC did not significantly predict sleep duration/quality. Self-reported and objective TST and sleep quality were all significantly associated with SHC. Mood played a mediating role in each of these relationships with the exception of objective sleep quality.

Conclusion: The tested model on the association among PC, sleep and SHC and the mediating role of mood received partial support, highlighting the importance of sleep and mood in the emergence of SHC among university music students.

Keywords:

• mood
• perseverative cognition
• subjective health complaints
• sleep duration
• sleep quality
• music students

Acknowledgements

The authors thank all music students who participated in this study, as well as the persons present in the audience during the concerts. The authors also thank France Cadieux, Silva Pusterla, Jean-Noel Demierre, and Simon Thuillard for their help during data collection. Finally, they thank the music schools of Sion, Lausanne and Zurich (Swiss University Centre for Music Physiology), as well as the University of Lausanne for providing rooms for the concerts.

Notes

1 The regression analysis assumes a linear relation between TST in hours and the log-transformed SHC score: Log(score)=)a−b × TST. Thus, the predicted log(score) decreases by b if the TST increases by 1 (hour), that is, the non-log transformed SHC score is multiplied by Exp(b). In other words, for 1 h more sleep, the SHC score decreases by 100 × (Exp(b)−1).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant number: PDFMP1_137231). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.