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Research Article
Victoria CP Knowland
University of York
Corresponding Author
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This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License. Read Full License
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.
Method: 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 of the restrictions had been lifted). We explored children’s emotional responses to the pandemic, daytime behaviours and sleep patterns at both time points, with responses from both 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 decreased along with children’s COVID-19 related anxiety. Bedtime anxiety predicted how long it took children to fall asleep at night at both time points. Bedtime and wake-up time shifted at the onset 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 (e.g., time taken to fall asleep) to be taken as a key indicator of mental health in children, particularly under normal circumstances when schools are open and sleep duration may be less resilient.
Keywords
Sleep, Anxiety, Childhood, COVID-19
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No competing interests reported.
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This preprint is under consideration at BMC Psychology. A preprint is a preliminary version of a manuscript that has not completed peer review at a journal. Research Square does not conduct peer review prior to posting preprints. The posting of a preprint on this server should not be interpreted as an endorsement of its validity or suitability for dissemination as established information or for guiding clinical practice.
Learn more about In Review
Research Article
Victoria CP Knowland
University of York
Corresponding Author
Badges
Prescreen
This manuscript passed our Prescreen assessment
Complete author information
Appropriate declaration statements
Potential risks to human health
Prescreen
Peer Review Timeline
CURRENT STATUS: Under Review
Version 1
Posted 28 Apr, 2021
No community comments so far
Reviewers invited
Invitations sent on 30 Apr, 2021
Editor assigned
On 30 Apr, 2021
Editor invited
On 27 Apr, 2021
Submission checks complete
On 27 Apr, 2021
First submitted
On 13 Apr, 2021
Metrics
Comments: 0
PDF Downloads: ...
HTML Views: ...
Subject Areas
Psychology
License:
This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License. Read Full License
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.
Method: 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 of the restrictions had been lifted). We explored children’s emotional responses to the pandemic, daytime behaviours and sleep patterns at both time points, with responses from both 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 decreased along with children’s COVID-19 related anxiety. Bedtime anxiety predicted how long it took children to fall asleep at night at both time points. Bedtime and wake-up time shifted at the onset 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 (e.g., time taken to fall asleep) to be taken as a key indicator of mental health in children, particularly under normal circumstances when schools are open and sleep duration may be less resilient.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 5
Figure 6
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