2004 – Perfectionism And Insomnia In Pregnancy

Abstract

Introduction

Socially prescribed perfectionism has been associated with long-term sleep disturbances (Azevedo et al., 2010).

Objective

To investigate the association between perfectionism dimensions and insomnia in pregnancy.

Methods

581 pregnant women, mean age 29.8 years (SD=4.5), average weeks of gestation 32.6 (SD=3.5), mostly married (75%) and nulliparae (64%) participated in the study. The multidimensional perfectionism scale (Hewitt and Flett, 1991; Soares et al., 2003) was used to assess total levels of perfectionism, self-oriented perfectionism (SOP) and dimensions of socially prescribed perfectionism (SPP): others high expectations (OHE) and conditional acceptance (CA) (Macedo et al., 2009). Insomnia symptoms and related daytime impairment were assessed with an insomnia questionnaire (Marques et al., 2011). Objective estimations of sleep were obtained through actigraphy in a small group (n=60).

Results

In comparison to good sleepers, insomniacs showed higher levels of SPP (M=53.4, SD=13.0 versus M=49.6, SD=12.3, p< .05) and SPP-CA (M=19.6, SD=6.1, versus M=18.0, SD=5.5, p< .05). Women with difficulties initiating sleep reported higher levels of SPP-CA than good sleepers. Analyses of actigraphy revealed that SPP-CA was associated with less sleep time (r=-.45, p< .05), less sleep efficiency (r= -.34, p< .05), more time awake during sleep (r= .43, p< .05) and more mean activity asleep (r= .38, p< .05).

Conclusion

Conditional acceptance is the SPP perfectionism sub-dimension particularly associated with self-reported insomnia and sleep alterations measured objectively with actigraphy in pregnancy.

Financial support

Portuguese foundation for science and technology (POCI/SAU-ESP/57068/2004).