Comparative analysis of sleep patterns and attention components in high school and college adolescents

Adolescence is a phase with physiological and behavioral changes. One of them occurs in the sleep-wake cycle pattern, manifested by a phase delay. However, morning school start time can decrease sleep duration during weekdays, impairing adolescent cognitive performance and well-being. Adolescents of different ages and educational level might suffer the impact of academic demand on sleep-wake cycle and cognition differently. Thus, the aim of this study is to compare the sleep habits and quality, sleepiness upon awakening and attention components among adolescents in the first years of high school and college. 71 adolescents participated in the study (45 girls and 26 boys), 44 enrolled in high school morning classes (G1 - 15.5±0.7 years), from a private school, and 27 college students enrolled in morning classes (G2 - 18.8±1.04 years), from biosciences courses from a public institution. The groups did not differ in bedtime, get up time, time in bed and sleep irregularity. However, both groups showed differences according to the day of the week, bedtime and get up time became later and time in bed extended on weekends. G1 presented worse sleep quality and regarding attention, showed higher percentage of omissions in all components and worse performance in sustained attention (ANOVA, p<0.05). The poorer sleep quality of high school adolescents and reduced attention may have a negative effect on school performance. Additional studies are needed to investigate the causes of these differences between these two educational levels.