Poster Presentation
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
9:00 AM - 9:45 AM
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
2:45 PM - 3:30 PM
Quality of Sleep and Daytime Functioning among Atopic Dermatitis School-Aged Children
Pi-Chen Chang, PhD, College of Nursing, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan
| Learning Objective #1: understand the level of sleep disturbace among school-aged children with atopic dermatitis. |
| Learning Objective #2: understand the level of sleep disturbace and its impact on daytime functioning among school-aged children with atopic dermatitis. |
Sleep disturbance associated with atopic dermatitis is a particularly troublesome factor contributing to daytime functioning among school-aged children. However, few studies provide objective measurement of sleep change in this population. In addition, there have been few controlled studies to assess the extent of behavior problems in affected children. Hence, the purpose of the study was to compare quality of sleep and behavior problems between school-aged children with atopic dermatitis and healthy control children. The design of the research is case-control. A purposive sampling was used to recruit 45 school-aged children with atopic dermatitis and 45 age and gender matched children. Sleep quality was measured from wrist-worn actigraph for three consecutive days. Parents’report on the Child Behavior Checklist was used to assess children's behavior problems. Research results indicate that the overall sleep efficiency was seen significantly lower in school-aged children with atopic dermatitis than was seen in the controls. There were more behavioral problems in children with atopic dermatitis than the control group. The actigraph is an objective and unobtrusive measure of sleep at home in children with atopic dermatitis. The results can be used to help health professionals to understand sleep disturbance and behavior problems among school-aged children with atopic dermatitis for the improvement of quality of care.