708-P: Within-Person Relationships of Sleep Duration with Next-Day Stress and Affect in the Daily Life of Adults with Type 1 Diabetes

Introduction: Daily short sleep duration may negatively impact individuals with type 1 diabetes’ (T1D) ability to manage emotional well-being and to cope with daily stressors. Nevertheless, existing research is limited and mostly focused on between-person differences rather than impact of fluctuations in sleep duration on individuals.

Methods: Participants in the Function and Emotion in Everyday Life with Type 1 Diabetes (FEEL-T1D) study completed 14 days of intensive longitudinal data collection. Sleep duration was derived by synthesizing objective (actigraphy) and self-report measures. General and diabetes-specific stress, positive affect (PA), and negative affect (NA) were measured via ecological momentary assessment (5-6 times per day at 3-hr intervals). Multilevel regression was used to examine within-person relationships between sleep duration and next-day stress and affect. Cross-level interactions were used to explore whether gender and baseline depression and anxiety moderated these relationships.

Results: Adults with T1D (N=166) with at least 7 days of complete data were analyzed. Participants were 41.0 years, and 54.8% female. Average sleep duration was 7.3 hours (SD=1.2). Longer sleep was significantly associated with lower general stress (p<0.001) but not diabetes-specific stress (p=0.18) on the next day. Longer sleep was related to lower levels on all next-day NA (overall, p=0.002; disappointed, p=0.05; sad, p=0.05; tense, p<0.001; upset, p=0.008; anxious, p=0.04). There were no significant associations with PA (all p>0.05). Examination of interaction effects did not reveal significant differential relationships by gender, depression or anxiety.

Conclusion: Findings from this study suggest optimizing sleep duration as an important intervention target for better managing stress and improving daily emotional wellbeing of individuals with T1D.