Personality traits and coping styles: the role of predicting sleep quality in transgender women

Objectives Transgender women (TW) generally experience poor sleep quality. Multiple studies have demonstrated that personality traits and coping styles influence sleep quality. However, studies targeting TW specifically are limited. Based on the stress mediation model of personality and health, this study examined the relationship between sleep quality, personality traits, and coping styles in TW, as well as tested whether coping styles mediate this relationship.Methods The study sample included 240 TW participants, who completed a self-designed survey, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), the Chinese version of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) Short Form, and the Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire. A structural equation model (SEM) was constructed to investigate the interrelationships among personality traits, coping styles, and sleep quality, with bootstrap analysis employed to examine the mediating effects.Results The structural model evidenced adequate to good fit to the data. Personality traits and copingstyles contribute to differences in sleep quality to a certain extent. Specifically, coping tendencies completely mediate the relation between extroversion and sleep quality and partially mediate the relation between neuroticism and sleep quality.Discussion Our findings highlight that personality traits influence the coping styles chosen by TW, which in turn affects their sleep quality. Future research on TW with sleep problems may consider personality traits and coping styles as potential avenues for improving sleep health.