Sleep Is a Family Affair: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Longitudinal Studies on the Interplay between Adolescents’ Sleep and Family Factors

Abstract

Family is one of the primary socialization contexts influencing adolescents’ psychological health. In this regard, a crucial indicator of adolescents’ health is their sleep quality. Nevertheless, it is still unclear how multiple family factors (i.e., demographic and relational) are intertwined with adolescents’ sleep quality. For this reason, this systematic review with meta-analysis aims to comprehensively summarize and integrate previous longitudinal research investigating the reciprocal relation between demographics (e.g., family structure) and positive (e.g., family support) and negative (e.g., family chaos) relational family factors and adolescents’ sleep quality. Several search strategies were applied, and a final set of 23 longitudinal studies that matched the eligibility criteria were included in this review. The total number of participants was 38,010, with an average age at baseline of 14.7 years (SD = 1.6, range: 11–18 years). On the one hand, the meta-analytic results showed that demographic factors (e.g., low socio-economic status) were not related to adolescents’ sleep quality at a later time point. On the other hand, positive and negative family relational factors were positively and negatively related to adolescents’ sleep, respectively. Furthermore, the results suggested that this association could be bidirectional. Practical implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Data-driven, generalizable prediction of adolescent sleep disturbances in the multisite Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study

“…Our analysis also identified a significant association between parent-rated family conflict and sleep disturbances. This finding aligns with past research showing poor family functioning [ 16 ] and negative family relational factors [ 16 , 93 ] are linked to poor sleep quality in adolescents. Conflict within the family unit may result in stress which, in turn, may contribute to other known correlates of sleep disturbances such as heightened physiological arousal and sensitivity to external threats [ 94 ].…”

Sleep Well, Study Well: A Systematic Review of Longitudinal Studies on the Interplay between Sleep and School Experience in Adolescence

“…This systematic review was preregistered in the PROSPERO database, registration ID: CRD42021281002. The current study is part of a larger project aiming to review longitudinal research studying the interplay between sleep quality and several proximal (e.g., peers [ 33 ], family [ 34 ]) and distal (e.g., macro-context [ 35 ]) factors in adolescence.…”

The Longitudinal Interplay between Sleep, Anthropometric Indices, Eating Behaviors, and Nutritional Aspects: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…This review conformed to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines [ 73 ] (see Document S1 for the PRISMA checklist, PROSPERO preregistration ID: CRD42021281002). The current study is part of a larger project aimed to review available longitudinal research evaluating the interplay between sleep and different aspects of psychosocial development in adolescents, e.g., [ 74 , 75 , 76 ].…”