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. 2007 Aug;32(7):845-50.
doi: 10.1093/jpepsy/jsm003. Epub 2007 Apr 18.

Brief report: parental report of sleep behaviors following moderate or severe pediatric traumatic brain injury

Dean W Beebe  1 , Lauren Krivitzky, Carolyn T Wells, Shari L Wade, H Gerry Taylor, Keith Owen Yeates
Affiliations

Brief report: parental report of sleep behaviors following moderate or severe pediatric traumatic brain injury

Dean W Beebe et al. J Pediatr Psychol. 2007 Aug.

Abstract

Objective: Determine the effect of moderate and severe traumatic brain injuries (TBI) on the sleep of school-aged children.

Methods: A concurrent cohort-prospective design compared children aged 6-12 years who sustained moderate TBI (baseline n = 56), severe TBI (n = 53), or only orthopedic injuries (n = 80). Retrospective parental report of pre-injury sleep was collected about 3 weeks post-injury. Post-injury assessments occurred prospectively a mean of 6, 12, and 48 months later.

Results: Growth curve analyses compared the groups over time. The moderate TBI group had worse pre-injury sleep than the other groups. The moderate TBI and orthopedic injury groups displayed a small decline in sleep problems from pre- to post-injury. Children with severe TBI displayed increased post-injury sleep problems.

Conclusions: Children who sustain severe TBI are at elevated risk for post-injury sleep problems. Because sleep problems may result in daytime impairments and family distress, additional clinical and research attention is warranted.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Raw scores on the sleep composite over time and across groups. Higher scores indicate greater reported pathology. BL refers to retrospective report of pre-injury baseline; all other data points were prospectively collected. Figure 1a displays unadjusted scores to illustrate baseline differences across groups. Figure 1b corrects for baseline differences to highlight the effects of the injuries and recovery over time.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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