Associations between 24-h movement guidelines compliance and anxiety and depression among youth receiving special education services in the US.

BACKGROUND: Youth with disabilities are five times more likely to experience anxiety or depression than peers without disabilities. Engagement in sufficient daily physical activity (PA), adequate nightly sleep, and limited daily screen time (collectively known as 24-h movement guidelines) is associated with lower odds of anxiety and depression for peers without disabilities. Extending the investigation of these modifiable behaviors to youth with disabilities is warranted. OBJECTIVE: To estimate the association between meeting 24-h movement guidelines and anxiety and depression among a nationally representative sample of youth with disabilities. METHODS: A cross-sectional secondary analysis of the 2019-2020 NSCH was conducted and included youth 6-17 years old who were currently receiving special education services. Weighted prevalence estimates and logistic regressions were employed to estimate the association between meeting guidelines (separately and combined) and current anxiety or depression status. RESULTS: Compared to youth with disabilities who met the guideline, those not meeting the sleep or screen time guidelines, independently, had significantly higher odds of depression, or anxiety (aOR range 1.53, 2.31 respectively). Comparable odds were observed between those meeting the PA guidelines, alone or in combination, and those meeting none of the 24-h movement guidelines. CONCLUSION: Adequate nightly sleep, and limited screen time, were significantly associated with anxiety and depression among youth with disabilities, a pattern consistent to peers without disabilities. Yet, meeting more than one guideline did not further reduce odds of poor mental health, warranting further investigation of compounding benefits of the 24-h guidelines within this population.

Measuring Health Professionals' Skills and Self-Efficacy for Communicating with Individuals with Disabilities: Instrument Development and Validation.

Individuals with disabilities experience numerous health disparities compared to their non-disabled peers and face inequities associated with challenges accessing care, stigma, and bias. Health professionals have the opportunity to address health inequities through improved communication, a primary barrier to receiving quality care; however more training is needed. There are limitations to existing tools to measure the skills or self-efficacy of professionals to communicate with individuals with disabilities, and to assess the effectiveness of training programs. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate an instrument to measure health professionals' communication skills and self-efficacy specifically related to working with individuals with disabilities. After a comprehensive review of literature, expert review of proposed scale items, and pilot test, a 19-item survey was administered to 237 healthcare and health and physical education professionals. Construct validity was evaluated by performing an exploratory factor analysis on each subscale and Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used to measure internal consistency. For the skills subscale, Cronbach's α = .919 and for the self-efficacy subscale Cronbach's α = .949 after the removal of one item, resulting in a final 18-item inventory that demonstrates strong validity and reliability.