Sleep problems more prevalent than expected in urban minority children

Sleep problems among urban minority children, including resistance to going to bed, shortened sleep duration, and daytime sleepiness are much more common than previously thought, according to a study conducted by researchers in New York.

The results of the study will be presented at the ATS 2011 International Conference in Denver.

"Although studies have shown that children from minority populations take more daytime naps and have shorter nighttime sleep durations than their non-minority peers, no studies to date have focused on sleep patterns and objectively measured sleep duration in early school-aged African-American and Latino children living in urban, economically disadvantaged communities," said study author Beverley J. Sheares, MD, associate professor of clinical pediatrics at Columbia University. "We studied this high-risk population because at age 5 and 6 years, children are starting school and thus may have less time available for sleep at night or for daytime naps, thereby reducing the amount of sleep at a time when the effect of shortened sleep on learning, behavior and health is critically important.

"The results of this study will be of significance to healthcare providers, researchers, parents and educational professionals, and will have significant public health implications for a highly vulnerable population of early school-aged children," she said.

Researchers randomly enrolled 160 parents of healthy 5- and 6-year-old children. Data were obtained using parental sleep log records and through face-to-face interviews using the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ), a validated tool commonly used to screen for childhood sleep problems. CHSQ data were used to identify and characterize the nature of the sleep disturbances. In addition, researchers were able to obtain data from 30 children who underwent sleep monitoring at home for five to seven days using actigraphy, an objective method of continuous, direct-motion monitoring used to measure sleep and awake time. The monitors were worn 24-hours a day during the monitoring period.

"To our knowledge, neither the CHSQ nor actigraphy has been used extensively in this population of early school-aged children to examine sleep," Dr. Sheares noted.

Evaluating the results of the sleep questionnaire, researchers found that 147 of the 160 children, or 92 percent, had scores indicating the presence of a sleep problem. In addition, parents reported the following behaviors were the specific sleep problems for their children: parasomnias, a group of sleep events that includes nightmares, sleepwalking and other events (51 percent); bedtime resistance (50 percent); shortened sleep duration (50 percent); daytime sleepiness (47 percent); night waking (41 percent); sleep-onset delay (27 percent); sleep anxiety (19 percent); and sleep-disordered breathing (11 percent).

All children who completed actigraphy monitoring had shortened sleep duration, with a mean sleep duration of seven hours 45 minutes per night on average, significantly less than the 10 to 11 hours recommended by the National Sleep Foundation for children in this age group.