Mediating Effect of Sleep Disorder Between Low Mental Health Literacy and Depressive Symptoms Among Medical Students: The Roles of Gender and Grade

作者：Jie Hu, Jun Wang, Danlin Li, Xuexue Huang, Yanni Xue, Liyuan Jia, Zhixian Zhang, Yuhui Wan, Xianbing Song, Rui Wang, Jun Fang, Yehuan Sun, Shichen Zhang · 发表于：Frontiers in Psychiatry · 年份：2022 · DOI：10.3389/fpsyt.2022.818295 · 被引用次数：21 · 研究领域：Mental Health Treatment and Access、Health Literacy and Information Accessibility、Sleep and related disorders

OBJECTIVE: In this study, we aimed to disentangle the mediating effect of sleep disorder between mental health literacy (MHL) and depressive symptoms in Chinese medical students, especially focusing on the impact of gender and grade. METHODS: Pooled longitudinal data of 5,504 medical students was collected between November 2019 and June 2020 to assess the MHL, sleep disorder and mental health of medical students in Anhui province, China. Mediation analyses were tested by using bootstrapping procedures. RESULTS: Sleep disorder were negatively correlated with adequate MHL, but positively correlated with depressive symptoms. The relationships between MHL and depressive symptoms were mediated by sleep disorder in total samples and the indirect effect accounted for 13.59% of the total effect. However, the ratio was 20.82% in female students, whereas no mediating effect was found in the male students. Moreover, the ratio was found higher in freshmen (15.11%) than that in sophomores (11.56%). CONCLUSION: Improving the sleep disorder by enhancing MHL is an effective way to reduce depressive symptoms in Chinese medical students. Further investigations elaborately considered by using more gender-balanced population with higher grade and lower level of education.