Examining the interactive association of family- and neighborhood-level socio-economic characteristics on children's sleep beyond the associations of residency and neighborhood violence.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the interactive association of neighborhood and family socio-economic characteristics (SEC) on children's sleep. DESIGN: Secondary data analyses were completed on the 2014 Ontario Child Health Study, a cross-sectional sample of 10,802 children aged 4-17. PARTICIPANTS: Children (aged 4-11, 50% male; N = 6264) with available sleep outcome data. METHODS: Multilevel modeling was used to assess the interactive relationship between family- and neighborhood-level poverty in relation to child sleep outcomes (problems falling asleep, problems staying asleep, weekday and weekend time in bed), above the associations of variables known to be related to sleep at the child (ie, child age, sex, internalizing problems, externalizing problems, chronic illness), family (ie, negative parenting behaviors, family structure, parent mental health, years lived in neighborhood, parent education level), and neighborhood levels (ie, neighborhood size, antisocial behavior). RESULTS: Neighborhood poverty (p < .01, ß = -0.001, 95% confidence interval [-0.007, -0.002]) was significantly related to shorter weekday time in bed and the interactive association of family and neighborhood poverty was significantly related to weekend time in bed (p < .05, ß = 0.012, 95% confidence interval [0.004, 0.021]). Children living in low poverty neighborhoods with families of higher SEC backgrounds, and children living in high poverty neighborhoods with families of lower SEC backgrounds had the shortest weekend time in bed (9.7 hours). CONCLUSIONS: There is a compound relationship of family and neighborhood poverty on children's sleep above and beyond family- and child-level risk factors.

Thoughts and affect experienced by parents of preschool- and school-aged children during night-waking interactions.

Measures of parents' cognitions have advanced our understanding of infants' sleep. But, few comparable measures exist for use with parents of preschool- or school-age children. The Parents' night-waking thoughts and affect questionnaire (PNTQ), a self-report measure of parents' thoughts and feelings when their children wake during the night, addresses this need. This scale was evaluated in two community samples of parents (N = 473). Sample 1 included preschool-age children (2-5-years-old), and Sample 2 included preschool- and school-age children (2-10-years-old). A subsample completed 1-month test-retest reliability for the PNTQ (n = 201). Parents completed the PNTQ and measures of agreement with night-waking strategies, parenting stress, mental health, and night-waking. The psychometric properties of the PNTQ (i.e., internal consistency, test-retest reliability; content, construct, and convergent validity) were evaluated. A four-factor solution (positive thoughts about limit-setting, positive thoughts about active comforting, concerns about limit-setting, and distress about night-waking) demonstrated adequate fit in Sample 1 (robust CFI = .900; robust RMSEA = .060), which was replicated in Sample 2 (robust CFI = .870; robust RMSEA = .080). Internal consistency (αc = .68-.88) and test-retest reliability (r = .46-.80) were acceptable across subscales and samples. There was good evidence for convergent validity in both samples-including correlating with parent-reported night-waking behaviour. The PNTQ is a promising measure of thoughts and affect related to night-waking experienced by parents whose children wake during the night. The PNTQ may increase understanding of parents' use of specific night-waking strategies and may account for resistance to employing alternate techniques. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).