UK children's sleep and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic
Victoria C P Knowland1,2, Elaine van Rijn3, M Gareth Gaskell3
1Department of Psychology, University of York, York, YO10 5DD, UK. vic.knowland@newcastle.ac.uk.
Insights
During COVID-19 lockdown, children experienced increased bedtime anxiety, which impacted sleep onset latency. However, sleep duration remained stable, and anxiety lessened as restrictions eased, highlighting sleep quality as a key mental health indicator.
Area of Science:
- Child Psychology
- Sleep Science
- Epidemiological Studies
Background:
- The intricate connection between sleep and mental wellbeing is crucial during childhood development.
- The COVID-19 pandemic and UK lockdown provided a unique context to examine sleep behaviors and anxiety in school-aged children.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on sleep patterns and anxiety levels in children.
- To understand the relationship between bedtime anxiety, sleep onset latency, and total sleep time in children during the pandemic.
Main Methods:
- Longitudinal study design using parent and child questionnaires administered at two time points during the UK lockdown (April-May 2020 and August 2020).
- Assessment of children's emotional responses to the pandemic, sleep patterns, and bedtime anxiety from both child and parent perspectives.
Main Results:
- Bedtime anxiety significantly increased at the start of lockdown but decreased by August as COVID-19 related anxiety ameliorated.
- Bedtime anxiety was a predictor of sleep onset latency (time to fall asleep) both early in and after the lockdown period.
- While bedtime and wake-up times shifted, total sleep time remained resilient, likely due to the absence of early school start times; child anxiety did not predict total sleep time.
Conclusions:
- Sleep quality, specifically sleep onset latency, should be considered a vital indicator of children's mental health.
- These findings underscore the importance of monitoring sleep patterns, especially concerning time to fall asleep, in children, particularly during typical school periods when sleep duration might be less stable.
Background:
Sleep and mental wellbeing are intimately linked. This relationship is particularly important to understand as it emerges over childhood. Here we take the opportunity that the COVID-19 pandemic, and resulting lockdown in the UK, presented to study sleep-related behaviour and anxiety in school-aged children.
Methods:
Parents and children were asked to complete questionnaires towards the start of the UK lockdown in April-to-May of 2020, then again in August of that year (when many restrictions had been lifted). We explored children's emotional responses to the pandemic and sleep patterns at both time points, from the perspectives of parents and children themselves.
Results:
Children's bedtime anxiety increased at the start of the lockdown as compared to a typical week; however, by August, bedtime anxiety had ameliorated along with children's COVID-19 related anxiety. Bedtime anxiety predicted how long it took children to fall asleep at night at both the start and the end of the lockdown. Bedtime and wake-up time shifted at the start of lockdown, but interestingly total sleep time was resilient (likely owing to an absence of early school start times) and was not predicted by child anxiety.
Conclusions:
These findings further support calls for sleep quality (in particular, time taken to fall asleep) to be taken as a key indicator of mental health in children, particularly under usual circumstances when schools are open and sleep duration may be less resilient.
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