A number of sleep problems that are brought to our attention may initially be based on parental report of there being a sleep problem rather than the child complaining of a sleep issue to us. Yet—how often do parents themselves who report their children having sleep problems also have sleep problems? This week Ronnlund et al. (10.1542/peds.2015-3425) used sleep actigraph monitors to measure sleep issues in a group of 100 children ages 2-6 years and compared these to sleep diaries and sleep measurement scales reported by the parents of these children. The same parents also completed a self-report of their own sleep quality.
Interestingly enough, the more problems with sleep the parents experienced personally, the more likely they were to report sleep problems with their children even if sleep problems were not recorded by the actigraph measurements. Do you ever suspect that some of the sleep problems that parents call to your attention might not be as severe as parents suggest they might be?
In this case—have you ever asked parents how they are sleeping? We would be interested to hear from you about this study and whether you agree with the findings by responding to this blog, posting a comment in the Comment section on the article, or sharing a comment on our Facebook or Twitter page. Perhaps if we help parents get the help they need with their own sleep, over-reporting of sleep issues in some of our patients may decrease—which is what this study suggests. Read it and you and your patients may sleep better.
