Abstract / Summary
Abstract Background Generalized anxiety disorder and habitual short sleep commonly coexist. Sustained attention is clinically relevant, but objective performance and electroencephalographic correlates in young adults with this combined presentation remain insufficiently characterized. Methods This secondary cross-sectional analysis used baseline data from a parent study. Sixty-nine university students (32 healthy controls and 37 with clinically diagnosed generalized anxiety disorder and self-reported habitual short sleep) completed a 10-min psychomotor vigilance test during 32-channel electroencephalography. Analyses included participant-level behavior, averaged event-related potentials and time-frequency measures, and single-trial P3-reaction time models. Unadjusted analyses were primary; age- and sex-adjusted models were sensitivity analyses. Results Median reaction time was 33.00 ms longer in the combined clinical group (95% CI 12.35–53.65; Hedges' g = 0.745; p FDR = 0.00873). The age- and sex-adjusted difference was 31.48 ms (95% CI 3.46–59.50; p = 0.0283; sensitivity-family p FDR = 0.0449). Participant-level reaction-time progress slopes differed, but the trial-level group × progress interaction did not, providing inconsistent evidence for a differential vigilance decrement. None of 42 principal averaged electroencephalographic group contrasts survived the relevant family and global multiplicity corrections. Across 3,231 trials with complete model data from 60 participants, larger within-participant P3 amplitudes predicted faster responses (β = -0.02384; SE = 0.00593; p = 5.89 × 10 − 5 ; p FDR = 0.000648). The adjusted association remained negative (β = -0.02332; 95% CI -0.03929 to -0.00736; p = 0.00420), while the P3 × group interaction was nonsignificant (β = 0.01595; p = 0.144). Conclusions University students with generalized anxiety disorder and self-reported habitual short sleep showed slower sustained-attention responses than healthy controls. Within-person P3 amplitude tracked trial-level response speed across groups, but no corrected averaged electroencephalographic group marker or group-specific P3 relationship was identified. The design cannot separate effects of generalized anxiety disorder from those of habitual short sleep.