Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Parasomnias in Post-Secondary Students: Prevalence, Distress, and Coping Strategies

Catherine S. Fichten
* ORCID logo ,
Eva Libman
,
Sally Bailes
,
Mary Jorgensen
,
Alice Havel
,
Yuxuan Qin
,
Laura Creti
,
Huanan Liao
,
Bianca Zlotea
,
Christine Vo
,
Jillian Budd
,
Abigaelle Vasseur
,
Tanya Pierre-Sindor
Version 1 : Received: 6 April 2024 / Approved: 8 April 2024 / Online: 8 April 2024 (07:10:57 CEST)

How to cite: Fichten, C.S.; Libman, E.; Bailes, S.; Jorgensen, M.; Havel, A.; Qin, Y.; Creti, L.; Liao, H.; Zlotea, B.; Vo, C.; Budd, J.; Vasseur, A.; Pierre-Sindor, T. Parasomnias in Post-Secondary Students: Prevalence, Distress, and Coping Strategies. Preprints 2024, 2024040501. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202404.0501.v1 Fichten, C.S.; Libman, E.; Bailes, S.; Jorgensen, M.; Havel, A.; Qin, Y.; Creti, L.; Liao, H.; Zlotea, B.; Vo, C.; Budd, J.; Vasseur, A.; Pierre-Sindor, T. Parasomnias in Post-Secondary Students: Prevalence, Distress, and Coping Strategies. Preprints 2024, 2024040501. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202404.0501.v1

Abstract

Parasomnias are a group of sleep disorders characterized by abnormal and unpleasant motor, verbal or behavioral events that occur during sleep or during transitions between wake and sleep states. They disrupt sleep and can have a detrimental impact on the individual experiencing them. Our goal was to identify types of parasomnias and their prevalence in the post-secondary student population and to explore students' coping strategies for parasomnias they found distressing. Seventy-seven post-secondary students completed the 21-item Munich Parasomnia Screening (MUPS) frequency scale. They also rated, on a 10-point scale, how disturbing each parasomnia was. Not only did 92% percent of students report at least one parasomnia, but our results also indicate that the vast majority of students experienced more than one parasomnia. This led us to investigate the likelihood of the co-occurrence of different parasomnias. With respect to the level of subjectively experienced distress, the most prevalent parasomnias were not always the more disturbing ones. Coded open-ended responses about what students do about the disturbing parasomnias indicate that grounding strategies and physical manipulation of one’s body were the most common, although most participants indicated that in spite of distress, they do nothing to cope. In conclusion, our study found a strikingly high prevalence of parasomnias in this sample of young adults and a lack of knowledge about effective means of dealing with these.

Keywords

parasomnia; college student; prevalence; disturbance; coping

Subject

Social Sciences, Psychology

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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