Associations of the shared and unique aspects of positive and negative emotional factors with sleep quality

Because most studies have examined only one emotional factor at a time, it is not clear which features of these overlapping constructs are important determinants of sleep quality. Our aims were to determine which aspects of negative emotional factors are most strongly associated with poor sleep quality, whether positive emotional factors are independently related to improved sleep quality, and whether rumination explains the links between emotional factors and sleep quality. A total of 224 young men and women completed questionnaires assessing depressive symptoms, trait anxiety, trait anger, trait positive affect, trait rumination, and sleep quality. Structural equation models revealed that greater Negative Affect - the shared variance among the negative emotional factors - predicted poor Sleep Quality (β= .62, p< .0001, Δ R²= .38); however, unique effects of the positive and negative emotional factors were not detected. Rumination did not account for the observed relationship. Our findings suggest that the shared, but not unique, aspects of negative emotional factors may be key determinants of sleep quality.