Personal spiritual values and quality of life: evidence from Chinese college students.

Values are guiding principles in our life. While some studies found spiritual values to be "healthier," Sagiv and Schwartz (Eur J Soc Psychol 30:177-198, 2000) showed that people holding non-spiritual values were higher on affective well-being. We examined the predictive power of these two types of values with a longitudinal data set collected from Chinese students mainly in Hong Kong. Structural equation modeling revealed that spiritual values (as well as family income) positively predicted quality of life a year later. Non-spiritual, self-enhancement values, did not show any association. Results suggest that developing spiritual values may promote well-being through enabling individuals to find meaning and purpose in life.

The interplay between sleep and mood in predicting academic functioning, physical health and psychological health: a longitudinal study.

OBJECTIVES: Existing studies on sleep and behavioral outcomes are mostly correlational. Longitudinal data is limited. The current longitudinal study assessed how sleep duration and sleep quality may be causally linked to daytime functions, including physical health (physical well-being and daytime sleepiness), psychological health (mood and self-esteem) and academic functioning (school grades and study effort). The mediation role of mood in the relationship between sleep quality, sleep duration and these daytime functions is also assessed. METHODS: A sample of 930 Chinese students (aged 18-25) from Hong Kong/Macau completed self-reported questionnaires online across three academic semesters. Sleep behaviors are assessed by the sleep timing questionnaire (for sleep duration and weekday/weekend sleep discrepancy) and the Pittsburgh sleep quality index (sleep quality); physical health by the World Health Organization quality of life scale-brief version (physical well-being) and Epworth Sleepiness Scale (daytime sleepiness); psychological health by the depression anxiety stress scale (mood) and Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (self-esteem) and academic functioning by grade-point-average and the college student expectation questionnaire (study effort). RESULTS: Structural equation modeling with a bootstrap resample of 5000 showed that after controlling for demographics and participants' daytime functions at baseline, academic functions, physical and psychological health were predicted by the duration and quality of sleep. While some sleep behaviors directly predicted daytime functions, others had an indirect effect on daytime functions through negative mood, such as anxiety. CONCLUSION: Sleep duration and quality have direct and indirect (via mood) effects on college students' academic function, physical and psychological health. Our findings underscore the importance of healthy sleep patterns for better adjustment in college years.

"Social jetlag" in morning-type college students living on campus: implications for physical and psychological well-being.

Although on-campus residence allows easier access to campus facilities, existing studies showed mixed results regarding the relationship between college residence and students' well-being indicators, such as sleep behaviors and mood. There was also a lack of studies investigating the role of chronotype in the relationship between on-campus residence and well-being. In particular, the temporal relationships among these factors were unclear. Hence, this longitudinal study aims to fill in these gaps by first reporting the well-being (measured in terms of mood, sleep, and quality of life) among students living on and off campus across two academic semesters. We explored factors predicting students' dropout in university residences. Although students living on campus differ in their chronotypes, activities in campus residence (if any) are mostly scheduled in the nighttime. We therefore tested if individual differences in chronotype interact with campus residence in affecting well-being. Our final sample consisted of 215 campus residents and 924 off-campus-living students from 10 different universities or colleges in Hong Kong or Macau. Their mean age was 20.2 years (SD=2.3); 6.5% of the participants are female. Participants completed self-reported questionnaires online on their sleep duration, sleep quality, chronotype, mood, and physical and psychological quality of life. Across two academic semesters, we assessed if students living on and off campus differed in our well-being measures after we partialed out the effects of demographic information (including age, sex, family income, and parents' education) and the well-being measures at baseline (T1). The results showed that, campus residents exhibited longer sleep duration, greater sleep efficiency, better sleep quality, and less feeling of stress than off-campus-living students. From one semester to the next, around 10% of campus residents did not continue to live on campus. Logistic regression showed that a morning type was the strongest factor predicting dropout from campus residence. Chronotype significantly moderated the effects of campus residence on participants' physical and psychological quality of life. Although morning-type off-campus-living students have better well-being than their evening-type peers living off campus, morning-type campus residents had worse well-being than other campus residents and they were more likely to discontinue living on campus after one semester. Our findings bear practical significance to college management that morning-type campus residents are shown to be experiencing deteriorating well-being. The authorities may need to review and revise the room-allocation policy in campus residence in improving the well-being among campus residents.