Sleep in College Students: A Mixed Methods Study

College students in particular have chronically restricted sleep patterns and experience more daytime sleepiness, and physical and mental health issues than their same-aged peers who are not students. Sleep is an emerging area of research and intervention for occupational therapists. The purpose of this study was to identify and investigate how college student’s beliefs about sleep affect their quality of sleep. This study asked: how do beliefs and attitudes about sleep affect sleep quality and participation in valued occupations in college students? Four college students were interviewed regarding their sleep beliefs and attitudes. They also completed a two-week sleep diary to determine their general sleep beliefs and attitudes and daily behavior. The interviews were coded for themes and four emerging themes were identified: a) beliefs about sleep patterns related to temporal structure of sleep, b) the impact of stress on sleep, c) occupational performance in terms of performance in the occupation of sleep and performance in all other occupations (daytime performance), and d) conflicting beliefs about sleep. Sleep diary data revealed that participants’ idealized sleep beliefs are not consistent with actual behavior. From these themes researchers concluded that college students do not have well defined beliefs and attitudes about sleep or consistent, routine sleep schedules, leading to fair sleep quality and performance of daily occupations.https://scholar.dominican.edu/ug-student-posters/1031/thumbnail.jp

Sleep as an Occupation in College Students: A Mixed Method Study

Sleep is an emerging area of research and practice for occupational therapists. The purpose of this study was to identify and investigate how college students’ cognitive perceptions and beliefs about sleep affect their quality of sleep. Four college students participated in qualitative interviews investigating their sleep beliefs and attitudes. The students also completed a two-week daily sleep diary to report their sleep beliefs, attitudes, and daily living patterns. Four emerging themes were identified from the interviews: beliefs about sleep patterns related to temporal structure of sleep, stress, daytime performance associated with sleep, and conflicting beliefs about sleep. Daily sleep diaries also revealed inconsistencies between idealized and actual sleep patterns. Based on the identified themes and sleep diary data, researchers concluded that college students do not have defined beliefs and attitudes about the value of sleep or consistent, routine sleep schedules. Occupational therapy interventions should strive to identify beliefs and attitudes about sleep in order to change non-adaptive beliefs and help clients develop routines to improve sleep quality and daytime performance

Analysis of transcript abundance of uterine genes after application of bovine pregnancy associated glycoproteins to endometrial explants

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] Pregnancy-associated glycoproteins (PAGs) belong to the aspartic protease family and are expressed exclusively by trophoblasts of even-toed ungulates. This study was designed to provide insight into some of the biological roles of bovine PAGs in ruminant pregnancy by measuring changes in transcript abundance in cultured endometrial explants from pregnant and non-pregnant heifers treated with PAGs. A mixture of PAG-4, -6, and -9 were purified from mid-gestation bovine placental extracts. Heifers were synchronized and bred by artificial insemination to either high fertility semen (n = 14) or dead semen (n = 6), then slaughtered at day 18 post-breeding. Endometrial explants were collected and split between 4 groups: pregnant + 15 [mu]g/ml PAG (n = 10), pregnant + no PAG (n = 10), non-pregnant + 15 [mu]g/ml PAG (n = 10), and non-pregnant + no PAG (n = 10). The transcript abundance for several tissue remodeling related target genes [extracellular matrix metalloproteinase inducer (EMMPRIN), matrix metalloproteinases (MMP) 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, and 9, plaminogen activator urokinase (PLAU), osteopontin (SPP1), tissue inhibitors of MMP 1 and 2 (TIMP1, TIMP2)], were analyzed in endometrial tissue by quantitative PCR. We observed consistent changes in transcript abundance between pregnancy groups for MMP1, 3, 7, 8, PLAU, SPP1 at 24 hours and MMP1, 3, 8, PLAU, SPP1 at 96 hours. These results indicate that the PAGs used in this experiment are capable of inducing changes in transcripts associated with matrix remodeling in bovine endometrial explants. This model system may be useful for assessing PAG function in the uterine stroma