Cervical headgear therapy and sleep-related attributes

The study aimed to assess (1) the effect of the treatment with cervical headgear on patients' sleep-related attributes and well-being and (2) whether these sleep-related parameters (ie, sleep quality and quantity) were associated with patients' compliance during the orthodontic treatment.

The study protocol was based on a prospective longitudinal quasi-experimental design. Participants (n = 26; 9 males; mean age, 12.4 ± 1.68 years) were patients in the Postgraduate Orthodontic Clinic, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. All patients received treatment with a cervical headgear having an embedded TheraMon microsensor. Sleep was assessed by wrist-worn actigraphy for 59 ± 19 days. The Epworth Sleepiness Scale was used to assess average daytime sleepiness, whereas we used the Athens Insomnia Scale for insomnia symptoms. Oral health-related quality of life (OHRQOL) was assessed by the Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP-14).

Patients slept on average 7.35 ± 0.42 h/d. Compared with the lowest sleep duration recommended for their age group, patients had an average chronic sleep deficit of 1.40 ± 0.49 h/d. Patients wore the headgear 90.9% of the days for 10.40 ± 4.17 h/d. However, only 7 (28%) patients reached or exceeded the wear-time recommendation of 12 h/d. In contrast, 2 (8%) patients wore headgear <5 h/d, 11 (44%) 5-10 h/d, and 12 (48%) patients wore headgear >10 h/d. Aggregated by participants, the median Epworth Sleepiness Scale score during the study was 3.40 (interquartile range [IQR], 4.85; range, 0.2-13.6), the median Athens Insomnia Scale score was 3.00 (IQR, 4.25; range, 0-7), and the median Oral Health Impact Profile score was 1.40 (IQR, 4.17; range, 0.0-20.8). Compared with patients who wore the orthodontic appliance >7.8 h/d, patients who wore it <7.8 h/d had worse average daytime sleepiness (P = 0.050) and worse OHRQOL (P = 0.019).

Orthodontic treatment with cervical headgear has no substantive negative effect on sleep attributes (quantity and quality), average daytime sleepiness and OHRQOL. However, poor compliance with orthodontic treatment seems to be associated with higher levels of daytime sleepiness.