The Mediating Roles of Cognitive Emotion Regulation and Resilience in the Association Between Life Events and Sleep Quality Among Medical Students

Bo Zhu ¹ Xiao-Meng Gao ² Mei Zhou ¹ Honghong Wang ^1*

• ¹ Xiangya School of Nursing, Central South University, Changsha, China
• ² Department of Social Psychology, School of Psychology, Xinxiang Medical University, Xinxiang, Henan Province, China

Background: Sleep quality in medical students can be influenced by numerous factors including life events, resilience, and cognitive emotion regulation strategies. Understanding the interplay between these factors is crucial for developing effective interventions to enhance medical students' mental health and well-being.Objective: This study examined the association between life events and sleep quality and explored the mediating roles of resilience and cognitive emotion regulation in this relationship.Methods: This cross-sectional study included 407 medical students from a university in Central Province, China, surveyed between March 15 and March 20, 2023. We employed the Adolescent Self-Rating Life Events Checklist, the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index to assess variables. Data analysis involved descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, and mediation analysis using the SPSS macro Process.Results: The valid participants (N = 407) were from a medical university with a gender distribution of 29.5% male and 70.5% female. Our findings indicate that higher scores on negative life events significantly predict poorer sleep quality. Furthermore, maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation was also a predictor of poor sleep quality, while resilience was positively associated with beneficial cognitive emotion regulation strategies. Notably, resilience and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation partially mediated the impact of life events on sleep quality.The study highlights that life events significantly affect medical students' sleep quality both directly and indirectly through mechanisms involving resilience and cognitive emotion regulation. These insights are vital for framing interventions to improve psychological resilience and adaptive emotion regulation strategies, thereby enhancing sleep quality and overall mental health in medical students. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of how life events impact sleep quality, offering pathways and conditions that could be targeted in future interventions.