Affect, emotion dysregulation, and sleep quality among low-income women

ObjectivesTo examine the underlying mechanisms through which steady-state emotions, specifically affect and emotion regulation, influence sleep quality among young adult low-income women.DesignCross-sectional.SettingStress and Health Study (2006-2012) in southeast Texas.ParticipantsA subgroup (n = 392) of racially and ethnically diverse young adult women ages 18-31.MeasurementsParticipants provided measures of positive and negative affect, difficulties in emotion regulation, and sleep quality. Structural equation models were designed to identify differential mediating roles of emotion dysregulation in the association between both positive and negative affect and sleep quality.ResultsThe relationship between positive affect and improved sleep quality operated completely through domains of emotion regulation (β = −0.054; 95% confidence interval [CI], −0.08 to −0.03), whereas the adverse effects of negative affect exhibited both direct (β = 0.142; 95% CI, 0.06-0.23) and indirect (β = 0.124; 95% CI, 0.08-0.16) effects on poor sleep. Negative affect was associated with poor sleep quality via 2 pathways-it directly influenced sleep quality, and it indirectly influenced sleep quality among women experiencing difficulties in emotion regulation.ConclusionsTherapies targeting improvement and maintenance of healthy emotion regulation domains, while delineating the positive affect state from the negative affect state, may lessen the burden of poor sleep quality among low-income women.