B4541 - Investigating the associations between ADHD sleep disturbance and comorbid mental health outcomes across the lifespan - 04/03/2024

B number: 
B4541
Principal applicant name: 
Hanna Isotalus | CDT Digital Health and Care (United Kingdom)
Co-applicants: 
Mr Fin Schofield, Miss Grace Gorman
Title of project: 
Investigating the associations between ADHD, sleep disturbance, and comorbid mental health outcomes across the lifespan.
Proposal summary: 

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a common diagnosis. It affects around 3% of the population. ADHD has symptoms of hyperactivity, inattention, or both. Although ADHD is usually seen in childhood, it is now accepted that for many, ADHD persists into adulthood. Adults with ADHD are more likely to also have symptoms of depression and anxiety. Without effective management, this can make life more difficult for someone with ADHD.

Both children and adults with ADHD also often report sleep problems. Getting good quality sleep is crucial to someone's health. Sleep problems are also a key aspect of mental health conditions, including anxiety and depression. In this proposal, we set out how we aim to investigate what role sleep disturbance plays in both ADHD and mental health.

This project will use existing measures collected from consenting ALSPAC participants. In particular, we will use measures of ADHD symptoms, sleep, anxiety, and depression. Through statistical analysis, we will explore whether ADHD influences someone's sleep quality. We will build on this by exploring whether a relationship between ADHD and sleep goes on to impact someone's mental health.

Our findings may have consequences for how we view the importance of sleep for someone with ADHD. Crucially, sleep is a modifiable behaviour. Our results may help promote clinical recommendations that consider sleep as a key component of ADHD management.

Impact of research: 
The findings will be published in peer-reviewed journals and conferences that adhere to ALSPAC open-access policy and disseminated through the Digital Health website. The findings of this project will contribute to a body of evidence on the relationship between ADHD, sleep, and mental health outcomes. In turn, this may promote further investigations in longitudinal studies that can assess this relationship with more granularity. Should an association be identified between ADHD, sleep, and mental health outcomes, this will be used to promote further attention being given to developing recommendations that consider sleep behaviour as an important modifiable component of ADHD experiences in adulthood. As this is also a student project, access to ALSPAC as a resource will provide an opportunity for the students to develop a robust statistical skillset that permits them to address important questions relevant to their theses.
Date proposal received: 
Tuesday, 13 February, 2024
Date proposal approved: 
Tuesday, 20 February, 2024
Keywords: 
Mental health - Psychology, Psychiatry, Cognition, Developmental disorders - autism, Mental health, Statistical methods, Cohort studies - attrition, bias, participant engagement, ethics, Childhood - childcare, childhood adversity, Sleep, Statistical methods