Sleep Disorders and Constipation in Autistic Children and Youth: Who Receives Standard of Care Drug Treatments?

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this retrospective cohort analysis was to investigate sex differences in receipt of standard of care sleep and constipation drug treatments among autistic children and youth with sleep disorder and constipation, respectively.

Methods: We used the data from the OneFlorida + Data Trust to analyze healthcare claims for 19,877 autistic patients with sleep disorder and 32,355 patients with constipation, ages 1 to 22. We used logistic regression to examine sex differences in receiving sleep and constipation treatments, and a multivariate logistic regression model to further assess sex differences in ever receiving sleep and constipation treatments, adjusting for age, race, ethnicity, and urbanicity.

Results: In our multivariate analysis, autistic girls with sleep disorder were 1.27 times more likely than boys to receive sleep treatment (p < 0.0001). Although autistic girls with constipation appeared to be 1.10 times more likely than boys to receive treatment, it was not significantly different after adjusting for demographic and socio-economic characteristics (p = 0.372). Older children were 1.09 times more likely than younger children to receive sleep treatment (p < 0.0001) and 1.07 times more likely to receive constipation treatment (p < 0.0001).

Conclusion: We did not find sex differences among autistic children for treatment of constipation, but autistic girls with sleep disorder were significantly more likely to have ever received treatment, which could indicate that girls experience more significant sleep disorders.