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  • Is change in mental distress among adolescents predicted by sedentary behaviour or screen time? Results from the longitudinal population study The Tromsø Study: Fit Futures

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Public health
Original research
Is change in mental distress among adolescents predicted by sedentary behaviour or screen time? Results from the longitudinal population study The Tromsø Study: Fit Futures
  1. Ida Marie Opdal1,
  2. Bente Morseth2,
  3. Bjørn-Helge Handegård3,
  4. Kjersti R Lillevoll1,
  5. Wendy Nilsen4,
  6. Christopher Nielsen5,
  7. Anne-Sofie Furberg6,7,
  8. Simon Rosenbaum8,9,
  9. Kamilla Rognmo1
  1. 1 Department of Psychology, UiT Arctic University of Norway, Tromso, Norway
  2. 2 School of Sports Sciences, UiT Arctic University of Norway, Tromso, Norway
  3. 3 Regional Centre for Child and Youth Mental Health and Child Welfare, UiT Arctic University of Norway, Tromso, Norway
  4. 4 Work Research Institute, Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway
  5. 5 Chronic Diseases and Ageing, Nasjonalt Folkehelseinstitutt, Oslo, Norway
  6. 6 Department of Community Medicine, UiT Arctic University of Norway, Tromso, Norway
  7. 7 Department of Microbiology and Infection Control, Universitetssykehuset Nord-Norge, Tromso, Norway
  8. 8 School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
  9. 9 Black Dog Institute, Randwick, New South Wales, Australia
  1. Correspondence to Ida Marie Opdal; ida.m.opdal{at}uit.no

Abstract

Objective There is growing interest in the relationship between sedentary behaviour and mental distress among adolescents, but the majority of studies to date have relied on self-reported measures with poor validity. Consequently, current knowledge may be affected by various biases. The aim of this study was to investigate the cross-sectional and longitudinal association between (1) objectively measured sedentary time and (2) self-reported screen time with mental distress among adolescents participating in The Tromsø Study: Fit Futures, in order to see if the association is dependent on mode of measurement of sedentary behaviour.

Design Prospective study.

Setting Sample drawn from upper secondary school students (mean age 16.3 years at baseline) from two municipalities in Northern Norway participating in The Tromsø Study: Fit Futures 1 and 2.

Participants 686 adolescents (54.5% female), with complete self-reported and accelerometer data after multiple imputation.

Primary outcome measures Mental distress assessed via the Hopkins Symptom Checklist-10 (HSCL-10).

Results Minutes in sedentary behaviour measured by accelerometer showed no significant relationship with mental distress in neither crude, partly adjusted nor multiple adjusted hierarchic linear regression analyses. Self-reported screen time was positively associated with mental distress in all analyses (multiple adjusted, B=0.038, p=0.008, 95% CI 0.010 to 0.066). However, the effect was small.

Conclusions Self-reported screen time was associated with slightly elevated mental distress 2 years later, whereas objectively measured minutes in sedentary behaviour was not, indicating a discrepancy in the results depending on measurement methods.

  • adolescence
  • youth
  • sedentary behavior
  • mental distress
  • depression
  • anxiety
  • physical activity
  • objective measurement
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-035549

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors Study concept and design: IMO, KR and BM. Analysing and interpreting of data: IMO, KR, BM and B-HH. Drafting of the manuscript: IMO. Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: IMO, KR, BM, B-HH, KRL, WN, CSN, A-SF and SR. Study supervision: KR. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

    • Funding The Northern Norway Regional Health Authority (Norwegian: Helse Nord) funded the research when a layout of the project was approved by their committee December 2016. The Tromsø Study: Fit Futures is a collaborative study between the University Hospital of North Norway, UiT–The Arctic University of Norway and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. ActiGraph instruments were funded by the Simon F Hartmann family fund.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.

    • Ethics approval Norwegian Data Inspectorate and the Regional Committee for Medical and Health Research Ethics for Northern-Norway (REK-Nord) have approved Fit Futures – part of The Tromsø Study. The Tromsø Study collected the written informed consent from participants/guardians. The present project has received a specific approval from REK-Nord (Project number: 2016/987/REK nord).

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data availability statement Data may be obtained from a third party and are not publicly available. The dataset supporting the articles findings is available through application directed to the Tromsø Study by following the steps presented on their online page: https://en.uit.no/forskning/forskningsgrupper/sub?p_document_id=453582&sub_id=71247.