Abstract
Introduction
Approximately half of school-aged children (ages 5–18) get either insufficient sleep during school nights or barely meet the required amount of sleep expected for healthy functioning (National Sleep Foundation, 2014).This percentage increases as children develop into adolescents (National Sleep Foundation, 2006). Accordingly, sleep problems and insufficient sleep are so pervasive that they could be considered an epidemic due to their adverse impact on children’s mental and physical health (Owens, 2015; Shochat et al., 2014). Fundamental to children’s sleep health is their sleep environment (Billings et al., 2019; Spilsbury et al., 2005). Despite its importance, however, there remains a noticeable absence of valid and reliable assessments of this construct. The current study sought to develop a measure of children’s sleep environments to support research and clinical work on youth’s sleep health.
Methods
A total of 813 parents (Mage = 40.6, SD = 8.6; 72% female) completed an online survey regarding their child’s (Mage = 10.5, SD = 3.8; 45% female) sleep environment and sleep-related behavior. The majority of families identified as Caucasian (approximately 80%). Parents reported fairly high annual incomes (Median = $75,000), but 28.2% of families reported incomes less than $50,000. A total of 18 items (total scale score; alpha = .74) were selected from a pool of 38 items developed from previous research that examined aspects of the sleep environment and were entered into an exploratory factor analysis from which 4 factors emerged: general sleep environment (10 items, alpha = .91), sleeping alone vs. with siblings (2 items, alpha = .78), presence of electronic screens (4 items, alpha = .75), and emotional environment (2 items, alpha = .80).
Results
The subscales demonstrated distinct patterns of correlations with related constructs, and unique predictive variance in explaining children’s daytime sleepiness even after controlling for children’s sleep hygiene, behavior problems, and sleep problems.
Conclusion
The current study is one of the first to demonstrate a valid/reliable assessment of children’s sleep environments. Not only will this measure provide researchers with an assessment of a fundamental influence on children’s sleep, but it will also enable clinicians to better measure this construct and support effective sleep health recommendations.
Support (if any):
Later sleep timing predicts accelerated summer weight gain among elementary school children: a prospective observational study
