Browsing by Author "Kuha, Tiia"

Objectives. Child psychiatric patients have been noted to sleep less and experience more sleep problems than their normative peers. Sleep problems have been noted to associate with the intensity of child psychiatric patients’ psychiatric problems. At population-level, sleep problems have been recognized as a risk factor for having co-existing psychosocial symptoms. Especially persistent sleep problems are considered to affect children’s mental health and development far more adversely than short-term sleep problems. However, knowledge of the continuity and persistence of sleep problems among child psychiatric patients is scarce. Only little is known about the associations between sleep problems, especially persistent ones, and their connections to psychiatric symptoms among this patient group. This longitudinal study investigates how often sleep problems in preschool age continue till school age among child psychiatry patients. This study also examines if sleep problems at preschool predict psychiatric symptoms at school age and how sleep problem persistency associates with psychiatric symptoms at school age. Methods. Participants (n=68) were outpatients in Psychiatric Units for Young Children in Helsinki University Hospital during 2015-2017. Caregivers evaluated children’s sleep with Sleep Disturbance Scale for Children (SDSC) and psychiatric symptoms with Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) at baseline (age 4-7 years) and at follow-up (age 8-13 years). Family background questionnaire was collected at both times. The persistency of sleep problems was investigated using repeated measures of ANOVA and repeated t-tests. Sleep’s relation to psychiatric symptoms was investigated with linear regression models and sleep problem persistency’s relation to psychiatric symptoms was examined with variance analysis. Results and conclusions. Sleep problems tend to persist among child psychiatric patients. Of the children who had sleep problems at preschool age, 64% continued to have them at school age, e.g., 23.5% of the children suffered from persistent sleep problems. Sleep problems did not decrease by age statistically significantly. Sleep problems at preschool age predicted overall psychiatric symptoms, internalizing, and externalizing symptoms at school age, when regression models did not include control variables. Internalizing symptoms at school age were predicted by sleep problems (p=.036) even after controlling for age, sex, and psychiatric symptoms at preschool age. Persistent sleep problems strongly associated with the intensity of psychiatric symptoms at school age. Sleep problems are prevalent, persistent, and connected with psychiatric symptoms in children treated in child psychiatric clinics. The results emphasize the importance of identifying and treating sleep problems in these children.