Objectives: To explore the relationships of perceived stress and depressive symptoms to sleep problems, testing for mediation by adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies.
Methods: Alternative high school students (N = 1676) completed self-report surveys. Cross-sectional data were analyzed via Preacher and Hayes' procedures for multiple mediation.
Results: The positive relationship between depressive symptoms and sleep problems was mediated partially by anger coping (positively related to sleep problems). The positive relationship between perceived stress and sleep problems was not mediated by coping strategies.
Conclusions: Findings provide information on psychological factors that may lead to poor sleep outcomes, and are useful for developing health promotion interventions to impact lifelong health behaviors.