Decreased Sleep Duration and Increased Use of Medication to Aid Sleep Among Parents of Children With Atopic Dermatitis: A Cross-Sectional Study of the National Health Interview Survey, 2013-2018.

Abstract

While atopic dermatitis (AD) is one of the most common childhood inflammatory conditions and has been associated with decreased parental sleep quality, most of the reports on this topic are single-institutional in nature with relatively small sample sizes. Thus, to assess the association of childhood AD with parental sleep on a national scale, we utilized the 2013-2018 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and conducted multivariable logistic regression analyses. 6,130,919 (mean age: 7.9 years, standard error [SE]: 0.08) weighted participants had parent-reported AD (12.9%) and having a child with AD decreased the odds of acquiring 7 hours of sleep (aOR, 0.78; [95% CI 0.72-0.85]) and increased the odds of taking medications to aid sleep (aOR, 1.26; [95% CI 1.12-1.43]). Our findings suggest that having a child with pediatric AD increases the odds of parents not meeting the 7 hours of sleep recommended by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, underscoring the indirect burden of this condition.