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Presleep activities and time of sleep onset in children

journal contribution
posted on 2013-02-01, 00:00 authored by L S Foley, Ralph MaddisonRalph Maddison, Y Jiang, S Marsh, T Olds, K Ridley
OBJECTIVE: Presleep activities have been implicated in the declining sleep duration of young people. A use-of-time approach may be used to describe the presleep period. The study aims were to describe the activities undertaken 90 minutes before sleep onset and to examine the association between activities and time of sleep onset in New Zealand young people. METHODS: Participants (N = 2017; 5-18 years) self-reported their time use as part of a national survey. All activities reported in the 90 minutes before sleep were extracted. The top 20 activities were grouped into 3 behavioral sets: screen sedentary time, nonscreen sedentary time, and self-care. An adjusted regression model was used to estimate presleep time spent in each behavioral set for 4 distinct categories of sleep onset (very early, early, late, or very late), and the differences between sleep onset categories were tested. RESULTS: In the entire sample, television watching was the most commonly reported activity, and screen sedentary time accounted for ∼30 minutes of the 90-minute presleep period. Participants with a later sleep onset had significantly greater engagement in screen time than those with an earlier sleep onset. Conversely, those with an earlier sleep onset spent significantly greater time in nonscreen sedentary activities and self-care. CONCLUSIONS: Screen sedentary time dominated the presleep period in this sample and was associated with a later sleep onset. The development of interventions to reduce screen-based behaviors in the presleep period may promote earlier sleep onset and ultimately improved sleep duration in young people.

History

Journal

Pediatrics

Volume

131

Issue

2

Pagination

276 - 282

Publisher

American Academy of Pediatrics

Location

Elk Grove Village, Ill.

eISSN

1098-4275

Language

eng

Publication classification

C Journal article; C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2013, American Academy of Pediatrics