Prospective associations between heterogeneous sleep profiles and depressive symptoms in adolescents: The mediating role of coping styles

Introduction: Extant literature has linked sleep disturbance to depressive symptoms.However, the coexistence of naturally occurring sleep profiles among adolescents andthe prospective associations between sleep profiles and depressive symptoms remainpoorly understood. This study aims to uncover sleep patterns in Chinese adolescentsbased on a comprehensive set of sleep features (e.g., latency, daytime dysfunction,etc.) derived from the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and investigate therelationship between these profiles and subsequent depressive symptoms mediated bypositive and negative coping styles.Methods: Five thousand five hundred five adolescents from Shandong province,China, enrolled (Mage = 16.83 years; 49.9% girls) in a two‐wave longitudinal study (T1in August 2023; T2 in February 2024). Latent class analysis (LCA) was conducted toidentify adolescent sleep patterns. Mediation and sensitivity analyses were used toexamine prospective associations between sleep patterns, coping styles, and depressivesymptoms.Results: Four qualitatively distinct sleep profiles emerged: Healthy Sleepers (18.9%),Latency but Functioning Sleepers (13.6%), Efficient but Dysfunctional Sleepers(57.5%), and Medicated Maladaptive Sleepers (10.0%). Using the Healthy Sleepers as areference group, Latency but Functional Sleepers, Efficient but Dysfunctional Sleepers,and Medicated Maladaptive Sleepers all predicted subsequent depressive symptomsthrough positive coping styles rather than negative coping styles. The relative indirecteffects were 0.19, 0.19, and 0.32, respectively.Conclusions: The study underscored that adolescents exhibit distinct sleep patterns,and specific sleep profiles may be prospectively associated with depressive symptomsmediated by positive coping styles.