Associations between objectively measured and self-reported sleep with academic and cognitive performance in adolescents: DADOS study

Adequate sleep has been positively related with health and school achievement outcomes during adolescence. The aim of this study was to investigate the associations of objectively measured and self-reported sleep duration and quality with academic and cognitive performance in adolescents. This study was conducted with 257 adolescents (13.9 +/- 0.3 years) from the DADOS study (Deporte, ADOlescencia y Salud). Objectively measured and self-reported sleep duration and quality were obtained by a wrist-worn GENEActiv accelerometer and the Spanish version of Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index questionnaire, respectively. Academic performance was analysed through school records using four indicators: math, language, science and grade point average score. Cognitive performance was measured using the Spanish version of the SRA Test of Educational Ability. After Benjamini-Hochberg correction for the false discovery rate, objectively measured sleep duration was negatively associated with verbal ability (beta = -0.179, p = .004), whilst self-reported sleep quality was positively associated with academic performance (beta ranging from 0.209 to 0.273; all p < .001). These associations remained significant after further controlling for physical fitness and physical activity. Conversely, there were no associations between self-reported sleep duration and objective sleep quality with academic and cognitive performance. Our findings fit in line with previous research showing that sleep quality may play an important role on adolescents' academic performance. Further interventional research is needed to clarify the mechanisms by which sleep is related to academic performance in youth.