Mind the Gap! Sleep Problems in Children With ADHD-A Qualitative Analysis of Clinician Training Needs.
Lucy Smith, David Daley, Samuele Cortese and 1 others
PMID 41814597WHAT IT FOUND
Clinicians treating children with ADHD say sleep is one of the biggest problems families bring, yet most had no formal sleep training and learned on the job.
Asked directly about sleep disorders, they recognised how little they knew and wanted short, evidence-based, interactive training.
Key findings
01Sleep was described as one of the most common problems these clinicians dealt with, often the main thing families came for help with, and as having damaging effects on the rest of the household.
02Most clinicians had no formal training in sleep management and learned instead on the job, from more experienced colleagues and from the families they saw; when asked specifically about identifying sleep disorders, most described their knowledge as basic and said they had not known sleep had diagnostic categories.
03Clinicians wanted training that was evidence-based and came from a trusted source, delivered in short interactive segments, covering sleep disorders, ADHD medication and sleep, and technology use at bedtime.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
Only 15 clinicians took part, all working in the UK and most of them nurses, so the views of other professions and of clinicians in other health systems are not represented. Participants volunteered in response to adverts, so they may already have been more interested in sleep than their colleagues, and their views may not reflect the wider workforce. The researchers did not collect information on whether participants had ADHD themselves or had children with ADHD, which they say might shape how a clinician views training needs. The authors acknowledge that participants' answers may have been influenced by knowing the study's aim was to develop training. It reports what clinicians said they lacked and wanted; no training was delivered and no child or family outcome was measured, so it says nothing about whether training would change practice or improve children's sleep. Several clinicians raised their own neurodiversity as an obstacle to learning, but this was not explored in any depth.
Declared interests
The study was funded by the NIHR Programme Grants for Applied Research (NIHR203684), a public funder. One author (D.D.) has given educational talks for Medice and Takeda, reports grants, personal fees and non-financial support from Takeda, Medice, ACAMH Learn and the New Forest Parenting Programme, holds book royalties from a self-help version of the New Forest Parenting Programme, receives compensation for providing training and supervision in that programme, has had travel support from the World Federation of ADHD, and is a scientific advisor for Assembly and Neuronotion. S.C. has declared reimbursement for travel and accommodation from ACAMH, the Canadian ADHD Alliance Resource and the British Association of Psychopharmacology. All other authors report no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that training clinicians about sleep changes anything for children with ADHD. No training was delivered and no child or family outcome was measured. The paper reports what 15 self-selected UK clinicians said they lacked and wanted, which is a statement about their training needs, not about whether meeting those needs would help.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →