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Co-Sleeping among School-Aged Anxious and Non-Anxious Children: Associations with Sleep Variability and Timing

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Abstract

Little is known about the co-sleeping behaviors of school-aged children, particularly among anxious youth who commonly present for the treatment of sleep problems. The current study examined the occurrence of co-sleeping in both healthy and clinically anxious children and its associated sleep patterns. A total of 113 children (ages 6–12), 75 with primary generalized anxiety disorder and 38 healthy controls, participated along with their primary caregiver. Families completed structured diagnostic assessments, and parents reported on their child’s co-sleeping behaviors and anxiety severity. Children provided reports of anxiety severity and completed one week of wrist-based actigraphy to assess objective sleep patterns. A significantly greater proportion of anxious youth compared to healthy children co-slept, and greater anxiety severity was related to more frequent co-sleeping. Co-sleeping in anxious youth was associated with a delay in sleep timing and with greater sleep variability (i.e., more variable nightly sleep duration). All analyses controlled for child age, race/ethnicity, family income, and parental marital status. Co-sleeping is highly common in anxious school-aged children, with more than 1 in 3 found to co-sleep at least sometimes (2–4 times a week). Co-sleeping was even more common for youth with greater anxiety severity. Increased dependence on others to initiate and maintain sleep may contribute to poorer sleep in this population via shifted schedules and more variable sleep patterns.

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Notes

  1. There were several significant differences between the research-seeking and treatment-seeking anxious samples on variables of interest. The research-seeking sample had greater CGAS scores compared to the treatment-seeking sample [t(73) = 3.34, p = .001; Mresearch = 59.09, SDresearch = 5.93, Mtreatment = 54.68, SDtreatment = 5.18]. The treatment-seeking sample had greater parent-reported SCARED scores [t(70) = −2.29, p = .025; Mresearch = 28.46, SDresearch = 12.37, Mtreatment = 34.87, SDtreatment = 10.87], child-reported SCARED scores [t(71) = −2.45, p = .017; Mresearch = 27.40, SDresearch = 13.37, Mtreatment = 35.29, SDtreatment = 13.91], and variability in total sleep duration [t(33.37) = −4.36, p < .001; Mresearch = 42.75, SDresearch = 16.07, Mtreatment = 70.85, SDtreatment = 30.48]. Participants in the treatment-seeking sample also had a later average sleep onset time [t(34.52) = −2.13, p = .041; Mresearch = 21:55, SDresearch = 0:43, Mtreatment = 22:32, SDtreatment = 1:25]. Importantly, the significance and direction of all findings generally remained the same when accounting for the sample type as a covariate, with the exception of the relationship between co-sleeping and variability in total sleep duration, which dropped to marginal in the regression model (p = .06). Although the small sample of anxious children in each study limit our ability to draw firm conclusions based on these findings, these results generally suggest that the treatment-seeking sample presented with more severe symptoms than the research-seeking sample.

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Acknowledgements

This project was funded by grant K23MH081188 from the National Institute of Mental Health (PI: C. Alfano), University of Houston Small Grants Program (Co-PIs: C. Alfano & M. Clementi), and Texas Psychological Foundation Graduate Research Proposal Grant (PI: M. Clementi).

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Correspondence to Cara A. Palmer.

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Palmer, C.A., Clementi, M.A., Meers, J.M. et al. Co-Sleeping among School-Aged Anxious and Non-Anxious Children: Associations with Sleep Variability and Timing. J Abnorm Child Psychol 46, 1321–1332 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-017-0387-1

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