10:30 - 12:00
Tue-H4-Talk 5--48
Tue-Talk 5
Room: H4
Chair/s:
Ingrid Scharlau, Jan Tünnermann, Simon Schrenk
Subjective sleep characteristics and their association with attentional parameters in adult ADHD
Tue-H4-Talk 5-4803
Presented by: Solveig Menrad
Solveig Menrad 1, 2, Erika Künstler 1, 2, Kathrin Finke 1, 3, Peter Bublak 1, Sven Rupprecht 1, 2
1 Clinic of Neurology, Jena University Hospital, 2 Interdisciplinary Centre for Sleep and Respiratory Medicine, Jena University Hospital, 3 Memory Centre, Jena University Hospital
Besides attentional deficits, adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) report more sleep problems than healthy adults (Díaz-Román et al., 2018). Poor sleep quality profoundly affects cognitive function, prompting questions about its association with attentional deficits in adults with ADHD.
Our study aimed to 1) assess differences in subjectively reported sleep parameters between adults with and without ADHD, and 2) relate subjective measures of sleep with objective attention measures. We examined a group of adults with ADHD unmedicated at the time of testing (n=39, age: M=32.2 years, SD=11.1, 22 female) and an age- and gender-matched control group. Subjective sleep parameters were assessed via questionnaires, primarily the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Cognitive measures were obtained through the whole-report paradigm based on the Theory of Visual Attention.
Based on preliminary analyses, adults with ADHD reported significantly poorer sleep quality and efficiency, shorter sleep time and longer sleep latency than healthy controls. In the ADHD group, subjective sleep quality and efficiency were significantly associated with visual working memory capacity K.
In conclusion, adults with ADHD showed significant differences in subjective sleep parameters, indicating an overall worse subjective sleep quality. Associations between sleep parameters and K, previously identified as reduced in adults with ADHD (Finke et al., 2011), were evident in this ADHD cohort, although no significant reduction of K was found. Nevertheless, our findings emphasize the connection between sleep and cognition in adults with ADHD. Objective sleep parameter analyses for this cohort are still pending.
Keywords: adult ADHD, sleep quality, Theory of Visual Attention