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Addictive Behaviors

Are alcohol use and sleep disturbances related in college students? The associations of gender, sleep, and alcohol consumption

(PS1-6) Are Alcohol Use and Sleep Disturbances Related in College Students? The Associations of Gender, Sleep, and Alcohol Consumption

Friday, November 21, 2025
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM CST
Location: Elite Hall A, Level 1
Abstract Text: Title: Are alcohol use and sleep disturbances related in college students? The associations of gender, sleep, and alcohol consumption


Prior work has identified a constellation of risky health behaviors that frequently occur—and co-occur—in college settings. For example, alcohol consumption and sleep disturbances show positive associations in the general population and among college students. As part of a larger ongoing study exploring hazardous alcohol use (final N = 200), we examined the relation of sleep quality and hazardous alcohol use. Hazardous use captures not only absolute consumption levels but associated negative consequences. It is increasingly used in when studying college alcohol use as past studies have shown that not all students who drink heavily experience negative outcomes. At present 74 Midwestern college students (64.9% female; 74.3% White; Mage = 20.3) are enrolled in the larger project investigating the relations between hazardous alcohol use, expectancies, social anxiety and hookup culture in the college population. Sleep disturbance pathology was assessed with the Level 2—Sleep Disturbance—Adult (PROMIS; Yu et al., 2012), which measures sleep disturbance in individuals ages 18 and older. Hazardous alcohol consumption was captured by combined quantity/frequency (Timeline Follow-Back;  Sobell & Sobell, 1992) and negative alcohol consequence measures. It was hypothesized that hazardous alcohol consumption would show a negative relation with sleep quality and that this association would be stronger in men. The hypotheses were not supported. Results indicated no significant association between hazardous alcohol use and sleep quality overall (r = -.07, p = .56), among women (r = -.12, p = .42), or among men (r = -.06, p = .78). Follow-up tests showed a similar pattern when alcohol consumption, rather than hazardous use, was tested. These results differ from prior findings showing an association between alcohol use and sleep. Although overall PROMIS scores were mildly low (T = 44), there was no restriction of range or other distributional abnormalities. It may be that the predictors of sleep differ in the college population are more driven by general lifestyle patterns (e.g., erratic sleep schedule, intensive night time studying, etc.) and general measures of the ability to fall and stay asleep fail to capture sleep irregularities. Future research may be wise to explore the effects of alcohol consumption on specific aspects of sleep (i.e., REM cycle, sleep waves) among college students. In particular, the effects of hazardous alcohol use on REM sleep is important to understand givens its implications for learning and memory.