Mediating effect of psychological stress and resilience on quality of sleep and working stress of officers and soldiers in major tasks

Abstract

Objective To explore the mediating effect of psychological stress and resilience on sleep conditions and working stress among the officers and soldiers during major tasks. Methods Psychological stress evaluating test (PSET), perceived stress scale (PSS), Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI), and Connor-Davidson resilience scale (CD-RISC) were used to survey 464 officers and soldiers who took part in major tasks during June 2019 and June 2020. The subjects were assigned into control group (n=136) and somnipathy group (n=328, including light, moderate and severe subgroups) according to their sleep conditions, and also into low-resilience (n=95) or high-resilience (n=369) groups based on their scores of psychological resilience. Logistic regression analysis was employed to analyze the related factors for sleep disorders, and Pearson correlation analysis was adopted to investigate the correlation of psychological stress and resilience with sleep quality as well as severity of working stress, so as to determine the mediating effect of the former 2 factors on the latter 2. Result After 2 and 6 cases were excluded due to incomplete data from the somnipathy and control group respectively, there were finally 456 cases subjected (134 and 322 cases respectively). The age, numbers of violence witnessed, and PSS and PSET scores were older, larger and higher, while the CD-RISC score was lower in the somnipathy group than the control group (P<0.05), and significant difference was seen in the education level between the 2 groups (P<0.05). Age (OR=1.076, P=0.001), violent cases witnessed (OR=2.254, P=0.036), PSS score (OR=1.163, P=0.000), and PSET score (OR=1.162, P=0.000) were the risk factors for sleep disorder in the subjects, while CD-RISC score (OR=0.885, P=0.000) was the protective factor. PSQI score was revealed positively correlated with both PSS and PSET scores (r=0.533, 0.615, all P=0.000), and PSS score was positively correlated with PSET score (r=0.423, P=0.000). PSQI score was shown negatively correlated with CD-RISC score (r=-0.587, P=0.000) and positively correlated with PSS score (r=0.295, P=0.000), while CD-RISC score was negatively correlated with PSS score (r=-0.393, P=0.000). Psychological stress and resilience played intermediary role in sleep quality and stress, accounting for 40.41% of the total effect. Conclusion Psychological stress and resilience have a mediating effect on sleep conditions and working stress for officers and soldiers during major tasks. Measures, such as adjusting sleep status and improving mental stress and psychological resilience can reduce the stress levels of officers and soldiers and help them to get better results.

Keywords

• military psychology
• major tasks
• sleep quality
• psychological stress
• psychological resilience