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. 2021 Dec:1:100007.
doi: 10.1016/j.sleepe.2021.100007. Epub 2021 Sep 15.

Daily concordance between ecological stressors and sleep in young minority children during the pre-COVID-19 outbreak period

Calista U Alaribe  1 , Odochi U Nwabara  1 , Karen Spruyt  2
Affiliations

Daily concordance between ecological stressors and sleep in young minority children during the pre-COVID-19 outbreak period

Calista U Alaribe et al. Sleep Epidemiol. 2021 Dec.

Abstract

Objective: As the COVID-19 pandemic brings widespread changes in families, the sociology of sleep becomes noticeable. Yet, the socio-contextual determinants of a biopsychosocial phenomenon as sleep are poorly investigated. We examine changes concomitantly occurring in the child's sleep per familial and community stressors.

Methods: During the pre-COVID-19 outbreak period, in 24 minority children (5.4 ± 1.7 years old, 54.2% girls), sleep was objectively measured 24 h for two consecutive weeks, and this was repeated three times over the study period of three months. The caregiver filled out questionnaires surveying sociodemographic, community and family aspects.

Results: Children went to bed at 22:26 and woke up at 07:04, with each a variability of about 50 min. Money and time were revealed as related key stressors to sleep. Five dimensions best fitted their association. In general, concurrent changes within the individual child indicate that mean sleep variables seem to relate to predominantly features of the stressors (explained variance of 34.7 to 56.7%), while variability of sleep tends to associate to situational aspects of the stressors (explained variance of 30.4 to 61.8%). Associations were best explained in terms of the 24 h dimension, particularly exposing sleep variability.

Conclusion: Individual variabilities in a child's sleep are associated with familial resources, such as caregiver's time to self, money and basic needs. Time spent in bed, a modifiable factor by society and shaper of sleep quantity and quality, plays a key role in stressor-sleep associations. Insights from biopsychosocial perspectives may be valuable for understanding COVID-19 sleep studies, and the development of (post-) COVID-19 sleep recommendations.

Keywords: BN, basic needs; BT, bedtime; Child; Family; M, money; Minority; PEV, percentage explained variance; RESTLESS, restlessness index; RT, Risetime; SES, socioeconomic status; SOFL, sleep offset latency; SONL, sleep onset latency; Sleep duration; Sleep variability; Stress; TF, time for family; TIB, time in bed; TS, time for self; TST, total sleep time; USS, urban stress score; WASO, wake after sleep onset.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig. 1
Bronfenbrenner's bioecological systems, with at the core the child's sleep duration, problems, variability and individual changes.
Fig 2
Fig. 2
Urban stress scale and family resource scale change scores expressed as percentage: at the bottom the most stable and at the top the least stable stressors over the study period.
Fig 3
Fig. 3
Sleep duration and sleep variability.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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