Sleeping habits in Italian children and adolescents

Abstract

Sleep characteristics in children vary not only with age but also with ethnic and socio-cultural influences. Lifestyle issues as well as cultural beliefs and family values might influence sleep too. This review points out a high incidence of parental involvement at bedtime associated with longer sleep latency, a higher incidence of night wakings and a reduction of night-time sleep in preschoolers. We found also in school-aged children a high incidence of bedtime resistance, parental presence at bedtime, all-night cosleeping and TV use as a sleep aid in 30% of them. An irregular sleep schedule was found in 19% of adolescents; however, we found that Italian adolescents reported much better sleep hygiene than US teens. In Italy subjective, parental, and medical knowledge on sleep patterns in childhood and adolescence are limited and sometimes distorted. The results of our studies were more or less in line with those reported by studies carried out in other countries. However, some interesting differences in sleeping habits, probably culturally determined, were reported too. To better understand such differences in the future it would be desiderable to plan international sleep studies which embrace many cultures and languages, conducted in the same period with identical measures and administration procedures. These studies for their cross-national nature might provide the added opportunity to adopt common strategies for prevention of sleep problems in children and adolescents in different cultures.

Sleepless in Macao: Factors Associated with Sleep Behaviour and Sleep Duration among Children in Public and Private Schools

“…As many of the private school children delayed bedtime because of tests or exams, this practice could be seen as efficient: the children already did not have more time to waste, and they had to wake up early for school. This habit of "cosleeping" has been supported by research studies that included Italian, U.S., and Korean children [8,[26][27][28][29] Our finding that students in private schools were more often required to attend private lessons after school is consistent with the private students carrying a heavy school workload. We might conclude that they needed private lessons after school to assist them with their learning, but the desires of their parents for their children's academic success must be considered.…”

Short Sleep Duration and Irregular Bedtime Are Associated with Increased Behavioral Problems among Japanese Preschool-Age Children

“…Secondly, although the sleep habits of children are affected by socio-cultural environments, socioeconomic, ethics of the family (Giannotti et al 2005;Crosby et al 2005), data on age, income, and educational background of parents were not obtained. Thus, the results should be interpreted with caution.…”

A new diagnostic tool for children with sleep disorders

“…The subscale scores and the total score differentiate between clinical and control samples on individual items, which supports construct validity [18,25]. A wide range of studies using the CSHQ confirm the high acceptance of this instrument [9,16].…”