Sleepless nights, sour moods: daily sleep-irritability links in a pediatric clinical sample

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Psychology
• Sleep Medicine
• Child Psychiatry

Background:

• Sleep disturbances are strongly linked to mood dysregulation in youth.
• Limited research employs longitudinal, real-time methods to study pediatric irritability and sleep.
• Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) offers a novel approach to capture these dynamics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the bidirectional associations between momentary irritability and daily sleep duration in a transdiagnostic pediatric sample.
• To examine the moderating role of trait irritability on the sleep-irritability relationship.

Main Methods:

• A total of 125 youth (mean age 12.58 years) participated in a 7-day EMA protocol, with surveys administered thrice daily.
• Parental EMA reports were collected for a subset of participants.
• Trait irritability was assessed via youth, parent, and clinician reports.

Main Results:

• Decreased sleep duration was significantly associated with increased morning irritability, based on youth and parent reports.
• A bidirectional link was observed between parent-reported sleep duration and anger: evening anger predicted shorter sleep, and shorter sleep predicted morning anger.
• Trait irritability moderated the sleep-irritability association, intensifying it in more irritable youth.

Conclusions:

• Sleep-irritability dynamics represent a significant, bidirectional relationship in pediatric populations.
• These findings highlight sleep-irritability dynamics as a potential therapeutic target for managing irritability in youth.
• Real-time EMA methods provide valuable insights into the complex interplay between sleep and mood in children.