The Adler Center for Research in Child Development and Psychopathology, Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv University, Israel.
Sleep Med. 2011 May;12(5):478-82. doi: 10.1016/j.sleep.2010.10.008. Epub 2011 Apr 7.
Sleep problems are highly prevalent in early childhood. In many cases, parents seek professional help when they suspect their child suffers from a sleep problem. The aim of this study was to explore sleep, demographic and cultural factors associated with parental definition of child sleep problem in a large-scale, cross cultural study.
Parents (or caregivers) of 29,287 infants and toddlers (aged 0-3 years) from 17 countries completed a questionnaire on their child's sleep patterns, sleep setting, and demographic variables.
The results indicated that, in comparison to parents from predominantly Caucasian (PC) countries, parents from predominantly Asian (PA) countries were significantly more likely to identify a sleep problem in their children (26% vs 52% overall; 2% vs 17% "severe" sleep problem). Furthermore, whereas infant sleep variables were strong predictors of a sleep problem definition in PC countries, they were significantly less predictive in PA countries where demographic variables played a significant role.
These results highlight the need to further explore the role of demographic and cultural variables in determining parental perception of a sleep problem, a perception that relates to help seeking professional treatment for infant sleep problems. Our findings also emphasize the need to educate parents about infant and toddler sleep and to provide parents information and screening tools to help them identify sleep problems in a more evidence-based approach.
睡眠问题在幼儿中非常普遍。在许多情况下，父母怀疑孩子有睡眠问题时会寻求专业帮助。本研究的目的是在一项大规模的跨文化研究中，探讨与父母定义儿童睡眠问题相关的睡眠、人口统计学和文化因素。
来自 17 个国家的 29287 名婴儿和幼儿（0-3 岁）的父母（或照顾者）完成了一份关于孩子睡眠模式、睡眠环境和人口统计学变量的问卷。
结果表明，与来自主要为白种人（PC）国家的父母相比，来自主要为亚洲人（PA）国家的父母更有可能认为自己的孩子存在睡眠问题（总体上 26%对 52%；2%对 17%“严重”睡眠问题）。此外，在 PC 国家，婴儿睡眠变量是确定睡眠问题定义的强有力预测因素，但在 PA 国家，人口统计学变量则起着重要作用，因此这些变量的预测作用明显降低。
这些结果强调需要进一步探讨人口统计学和文化变量在确定父母对睡眠问题的看法中的作用，这种看法与寻求专业治疗婴儿睡眠问题的帮助有关。我们的研究结果还强调需要教育父母有关婴儿和幼儿的睡眠知识，并为父母提供信息和筛查工具，以帮助他们以更基于证据的方式识别睡眠问题。
