Sleep and Cognitive Functioning in Adolescent Psychiatric Outpatients and the Moderating Role of Physical Activity

Background: This master thesis is concerned with the moderating effect that physical activity has on the cognitive performance of adolescents with sleep as well as psychological disorders. Furthermore, a correlation between sleep, physical activity and cognitive performance will be explored and the effects of physical activity and sleep health on cognitive performance will be determined.
Methods: The study featured a total of 17 participants, 4 male and 13 female, aged 12-18, which were deemed eligible due to having a sleep disorder as well as one other psychological disorder. This study relied on cross-sectional data, which captures a moment in time of the participants’ habit. The participants completed entry questionnaires to determine the composite sleep health score (CSH score) and wore Actigraph GT3X+ on their wrist to measure their level of physical activity.
Results: There were significant correlation results between physical activity and cognitive performance. There was no correlation found between sleep and physical activity. In this cross-sectional study, physical activity did not show a significant effect on cognitive performance. There was also no significant result found for physical activity in a moderating role, as the effects found cannot be attributed to physical activity.
Discussion: As there were no significant results found, more research looking into this topic should be done. There were several flaws within the study, one major problem was the insufficient number of participants and their lackluster amount of physical activity.