A new study shows that children with asthma who live in urban areas may be at a greater risk for poor sleep.
Researchers used data from the Nocturnal Asthma and Performance in School study (NAPS), which included children between the ages 7 and 9 years with persistent asthma (n=206) and asthma with AD (n=35) who resided in urban areas. An additional 130 healthy control individuals were also included in the study. Each child with asthma had a current asthma controller medication prescription or caregiver-reported recurrent daytime or nighttime symptoms, activity limitation, rescue medication use, or ≥2 oral steroid bursts in the previous 12 months.
Asthma outcomes, including 4-week asthma-related lung function assessed from twice-daily measurements of forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1), were assessed. Additionally, the investigators objectively measured sleep outcomes during the same 4-week period, including the percentage of time spent asleep/total time in bed for the night (ie, sleep efficiency), the mean number of awakenings of ≥3 minutes, and the total time between evening sleep onset and morning waking (ie, sleep duration).
