Sleep Deficiency and Pediatric Chronic Pain.
Shumenghui Zhai, Shameka Phillips, Teresa M Ward
PMID 34023124WHAT IT FOUND
Sleep problems are common in children with chronic pain and often missed.
Use a brief sleep screen, ask about bedtime, night waking, daytime sleepiness and snoring, and refer to pediatric sleep care when insomnia or suspected sleep apnea appears.
Key findings
01Sleep deficiency affects an estimated 50% of children and adolescents with chronic pain.
02The BEARS tool is a short sleep screen for children 2 to 18 years, covering bedtime, excessive sleepiness, night awakenings, sleep regularity and duration, and sleep-disordered breathing.
03In a pilot randomized trial of adolescents with chronic pain and insomnia, cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia was associated with improved sleep hygiene, insomnia symptoms, and sleep quality immediately and at 3 months; anxiety, depression, and health-related quality of life also improved.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
This is a narrative review, not a controlled study of sleep treatment in children with chronic pain. The article does not describe how the literature was searched or selected, so the evidence may not be complete. Much of the sleep evidence relies on self-report or parent report, which can be influenced by how families describe sleep and pain. The cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia finding comes from a pilot randomized trial, so it is not definitive. The review says sleep assessment is time-consuming in short clinic visits, which may make routine screening difficult to apply.
Declared interests
The authors report no commercial or financial conflicts of interest and no funding sources to disclose.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that treating sleep will reliably reduce chronic pain in children. The article is a review and includes only a pilot randomized trial of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, so it does not establish sleep treatment as a proven pain therapy.