Clara Maria Inês, Clemente Vanda, Abrantes Joana, Marques Daniel R, Azevedo Maria H P, Allen Gomes Ana
Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Coimbra, Rua Do Colégio Novo, 3000-115 Coimbra, Portugal.
Center for Research in Neuropsychology and Cognitive Behavioral Intervention, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal.
Sleep Biol Rhythms. 2022 Jul 1;20(4):541-549. doi: 10.1007/s41105-022-00400-w. eCollection 2022 Oct.
It is often assumed sleep duration has decreased and sleep schedules have delayed over the last decades, as society modernized. We aimed to investigate changes in the sleep patterns of school-age children over time.
We compared the sleep timings, durations, and disturbances of primary school-age children in 1995 and roughly two decades later, in 2016. Data from 666 children attending the 3rd and 4th grades of basic education were combined from two different cross-sectional school-based studies conducted within the same educational region of mainland Portugal using the same parent-report questionnaire (Children's Sleep-wake Patterns Questionnaire).
Mean sleep duration did not differ significantly between the two time points (schooldays: = .118, = .906; free days: = 1.310, = .191), albeit the percentage of children sleeping the recommended number of hours decreased significantly in 2016 when compared to 1995 (schooldays: = 4.406, = .036; free days: = 16.859, < .001). Wake-times advanced on free days in 2016. Difficulties on settling to sleep alone and returning to sleep were more prevalent in 2016, as well as fearing the dark and needing lights on or parent's presence to fall asleep.
Sleep onset-related disturbances appear to have increased from 1995 to 2016. One possible explanation for this increase might be the change in parental practices preventing children from learning to fall asleep autonomously.
随着社会现代化，人们常常认为在过去几十年里睡眠时间减少，睡眠时间表推迟。我们旨在调查学龄儿童睡眠模式随时间的变化。
我们比较了1995年和大约二十年后（2016年）小学学龄儿童的睡眠时间、时长和睡眠障碍情况。使用相同的家长报告问卷（儿童睡眠-觉醒模式问卷），将来自葡萄牙大陆同一教育区域内两项不同的基于学校的横断面研究中666名三、四年级基础教育儿童的数据进行合并。
两个时间点的平均睡眠时间没有显著差异（上学日：=0.118，=0.906；休息日：=1.310，=0.191），尽管与1995年相比，2016年睡眠时间达到建议时长的儿童百分比显著下降（上学日：=4.406，=0.036；休息日：=16.859，<0.001）。2016年休息日的起床时间提前。2016年，独自入睡困难和再次入睡困难更为普遍，害怕黑暗以及需要开灯或父母陪伴才能入睡的情况也更为普遍。
从1995年到2016年，与入睡相关的睡眠障碍似乎有所增加。这种增加的一个可能解释可能是父母育儿方式的改变，阻碍了孩子学会自主入睡。
