Sleep, Anxiety, and Perceived Stress in College Students
Faculty Mentor Information
Dr. Sarah Emert, Idaho State University
Presentation Date
7-15-2026
Abstract
College students are susceptible to sleep disturbances due to stressors associated with higher education. Sleep, anxiety, and perceived stress are related, and these challenges may be heightened for college student athletes with additional demands. Existing studies often do not directly compare these groups, and therefore, differences remain relatively unknown. For this study, a total of 340 college students completed baseline demographic questions, the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), and the Socially Desirable Response Set (SDRS), followed by two weeks of sleep diaries (i.e., Sleep Onset Latency [SOL], Wake After Sleep Onset [WASO], Total Sleep Time [TST], Sleep Efficiency [SE], and Sleep Quality), the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-2 (GAD-2), and the Perceived Stress Scale-4 (PSS-4), averaged across days completed. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) revealed significant main effects for sex and athlete status (ps < .001), but not their interaction (p=.33). Univariate analyses indicated that females reported significantly higher TST, GAD-2, PSS-4, and SDRS scores and that non-athletes reported significantly higher ISI, GAD-2, PSS-4, but lower SDRS scores (ps < .05). This suggests that female college students experience higher total sleep time, generalized anxiety, perceived stress, and social desirability than males, and non-athletes experience higher insomnia severity, generalized anxiety, perceived stress, but lower social desirability than athletes.
Sleep, Anxiety, and Perceived Stress in College Students
College students are susceptible to sleep disturbances due to stressors associated with higher education. Sleep, anxiety, and perceived stress are related, and these challenges may be heightened for college student athletes with additional demands. Existing studies often do not directly compare these groups, and therefore, differences remain relatively unknown. For this study, a total of 340 college students completed baseline demographic questions, the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), and the Socially Desirable Response Set (SDRS), followed by two weeks of sleep diaries (i.e., Sleep Onset Latency [SOL], Wake After Sleep Onset [WASO], Total Sleep Time [TST], Sleep Efficiency [SE], and Sleep Quality), the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-2 (GAD-2), and the Perceived Stress Scale-4 (PSS-4), averaged across days completed. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) revealed significant main effects for sex and athlete status (ps < .001), but not their interaction (p=.33). Univariate analyses indicated that females reported significantly higher TST, GAD-2, PSS-4, and SDRS scores and that non-athletes reported significantly higher ISI, GAD-2, PSS-4, but lower SDRS scores (ps < .05). This suggests that female college students experience higher total sleep time, generalized anxiety, perceived stress, and social desirability than males, and non-athletes experience higher insomnia severity, generalized anxiety, perceived stress, but lower social desirability than athletes.