LAUSR

Despite research exploring sleep concordance between partners in couple relationships, some variability exists between partners’ sleep quality because of the social and relational context. One such mechanism that may help to explain the variability is sleep hygiene and if couples are similar or different in their sleep hygiene and if or how these similarities or differences predict worse sleep, relational, and psychological health. The present study explored the similarities and differences in sleep hygiene and associations with sleep, psychological, and relational health outcomes in 143 mixed-gender, bedsharing couples. Paired samples t tests between partners were conducted using the total Sleep Hygiene Index scores (aim 1a), and at the individual-item level (aim 1b). Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) scores of dyadic reports were conducted to examine the level of agreement between each partner’s sleep hygiene (aim 1c). Finally, a dyadic score model was examined using Structural Equation Modeling to identify associations between both a between-partner difference in sleep hygiene score and within-couple sleep hygiene average score on individual sleep quality, couple conflict frequency, and individual emotional distress. Results revealed a significant difference between men (M = 14.45, S.D. = 7.41) and women’s total score self-report sleep hygiene ((M = 17.67, S.D. = 8.27); t (142) = -5.06, p <.001). Further, partners only had similar sleep hygiene for 5 out of the 13 items. Partners’ had moderate agreement on sleep hygiene (.69-.856), suggesting that partners largely know each others' sleep hygiene habits. Finally, lower within-couple sleep hygiene was linked with both partners’ worse sleep outcomes, more relational conflict, and higher emotional distress. Findings from this study suggest that couples are less concordant in sleep hygiene practices than sleep quality. Moreover, partners are relatively aware of each other's sleep hygiene which may in part be associated with their psychological and relational functioning. Differences between partners seemed to be less impactful than the couples' average sleep hygiene on sleep, relational and psychological well-being outcomes. These results suggest that couple-level intervention on sleep hygiene may benefit both partners and carry over into relational and psychological benefits.