Crosstabulation and Correlation: Sleepiness and Its Impacts on People's Daily Lives

Sleepiness And Its Impacts on People's Daily Lives
Student's Name
Institutional Affiliation
Course Code and Title
Professor's Name
Date
Sleepiness And Its Impacts on People's Daily Lives
Introduction
Sleep is a significant aspect of human health. Sufficient sleep helps the body and the brain to rest, and lack of it affects the body's functioning. Insufficient sleep leads to fatigue, reduced energy, mood swings, cognitive impairment, weight gain, and poor motor skills. A person experiencing insufficient sleep will likely feel fatigued and lose energy because deprived sleep makes one sluggish and tired. This affects one ability to concentrate and perform routine tasks. Lack or insufficient sleep also leads to irritability, anxiety, and mood swings. This is dangerous for socialization among people. Sleep also plays a significant role in cognitive functions like memory consolidation and learning. Thus, lack of or insufficient sleep impairs one's judgement because it affects their ability to think clearly and concentrate. Additionally, lack of sleep causes hormonal imbalance, causing constant hunger, leading to weight gain. This study aims at researching the impact of sleep on various aspects of life, including fatigue, lethargy, tiredness and general well-being.
Literature Review
Several studies about the impact of sleep on various issues exist. The significant issues widely researched include the relationship between sleep and fatigue, lethargy, energy and tiredness.
Gotts et al. (2015) researched the relationship between daytime napping and cognitive functioning in chronic fatigue syndrome. The study used 118 adults in a standardized study that lasted 14 days and found that afternoon naps lead to poor cognitive functions and increased daytime sleepiness. Also, Gotts et al. (2015) reported that the afternoon naps increased fatigue and lethargy in the affected people. Similarly, Popp et al. (2017) researched the association between fatigue and daytime sleep and found a strong relationship. The study further noted that individuals with deep sleep and fatigue are likely to develop depression and anxiety, negatively impacting their health.
Altena et al. (2020) researched the impact of sleep on cognitive functions. They found that sleep problems reduced cognitive performance on assignments requiring working memory and uninterrupted attention. This confirmed that sleep problems negatively affect a person's cognitive functioning, ultimately resulting in depression and anxiety in the affected person. Gaultney (2019), in a study using college students, found a positive correlation between poor sleep quality and a rise in anxiety, stress, and depression. Grandner et al. (2019) also agree with Altena et al. (2020) and Gaultney (2019) that poor sleep quality may result in chronic medical conditions.
The negative effects of sleep also affect people's relationships. Newman (2016) argues that relationships face gruesome challenges people are under stress. Irritability is one of the negative effects of sleep deprivation, affecting one's mood. This makes a person disrespect other people, thus breaking relationships and causing stress. Moreover, insufficient sleep reduces a quality time for interaction among people. This may break relationships as people need quality time with fully invested attention. The lack of it sounds disrespectful. Randall and Bodenmann (2017) studied the relationship between stress and relationship and found that stress can lead to reduced relationship satisfaction. However, they suggest that it is important to identify the source of stress as external stress strengthens relationships as opposed to internal stress, which negatively impacts relationships' functioning.
Methods
A sample size of 271 participants was used. Of the 271 respondents,55% were females, and 45% were males. On average, the participant's age was 44 years, ranging from 18 to 84 years. This research used the sleep.sav dataset gathered from university staff in Melbourne, Australia. Data collection was carried out using a questionnaire. Staff from a University in Melbourne were requested to fill in a questionnaire with questions about their sleep problems, sleep behaviour and the effect of these problems on aspects of their lives such as driving, work and relationships. This research used a correlational research design. This design measures and assesses the relationship between two variables without the investigator manipulating or controlling the variables.
Variables
The following variables were used in this research: totSAS, ess, impact6, age, the amount of stress last month and relationships. The variable age ranges from 18 to 84 years. The amount of stress last month is rated on a scale of one (not at all) to ten (Extremely). Relationships represent the impact of sleep problems on relationships rated from 1 (not at all) to 10 (to a great extent). Impact6 represents an individual's impact of sleep problems on overall well-being. It is rated on a scale of 1(not at all) to 10(to a great extent)
TotSAS represents the total score brought about by adding scores of five items (lethargy, tired, fatigue, energy and sleepy) rated on a scale of 1 to 10 in the Sleepiness and Associated Sensations scale. The totSAS has a minimum score of 5, indicating low sleepiness and a maximum of 50, indicating extreme sleepiness.
ESS represents the total score of the Epworth Sleepiness Scale. This scale measures an individual's daytime sleepiness. The ESS has a minimum total score of 0, indicating low daytime sleepiness and a maximum of 24, indicating high daytime sleepiness.
Results
Pearson Correlation
A Pearson correlation analysis was conducted to determine the relationship between the Sleepiness and Associated Sensations scale score and the total score of the Epworth Sleepiness Scale, as shown in Table 1 below.
Table SEQ Table \* ARABIC 1
Correlation between Sleepiness and Associated Sensations Scale and Epworth Sleepiness Scale

Epworth sleepiness scale

sleepy & assoc sensations scale

Epworth sleepiness scale

Pearson Correlation

1

.292**


Sig. (2-tailed)


.000


N

255

237

sleepy & assoc sensations scale

Pearson Correlation

.292**

1


Sig. (2-tailed)

.000



N

237

251

Table SEQ Table \* ARABIC 2
Correlations between ESS and items on the Sleepiness and Associated Sensations scale

Epworth sleepiness scale

fatigued

Pearson Correlation

.291**


Sig. (2-tailed)

.000


N

244

lethargic

Pearson Correlation

.223**


Sig. (2-tailed)

.000


N

253

tired

Pearson Correlation

.317**


Sig. (2-tailed)

.000


N

254

sleepy

Pearson Correlation

.276**


Sig. (2-tailed)

.000


N

250