Screen Time Exposure and Altered Sleep in Young Children With Epilepsy.

PURPOSE: To examine the association between daily screen time exposure and both sleep patterns (sleep onset, sleep offset, and nighttime, and daily sleep durations) and sleep disturbances among a clinical sample of children with epilepsy. DESIGN: A cross-sectional actigraphic sleep study. METHODS: A convenience sample of 141 children with epilepsy (1.5-6 years of age) was recruited from an outpatient pediatric neurology clinic of a university-affiliated children's hospital in northern Taiwan. Participating families completed questionnaires and reported children's screen time use, with children wearing an actigraphy monitor for 7 days to assess sleep patterns. Multivariable linear regression analyses were conducted to examine the association of screen time exposure with the child's sleep patterns and sleep disturbance scores. FINDINGS: Mean minutes per day of screen time exposure was 89.79 ± 83.94 min, with 62 parents (44.0%) reporting their child having >1 hr of screen time daily. Mean daily sleep duration was 9.26 ± 1.01 hr, with 106 children (93.0%) sleeping 1 hour was associated with 23.4-min later sleep onset (b = 0.39, p = .02), 20.4-min later sleep offset (b = 0.34, p = .04), and more severe sleep disturbances (b = 2.42, p = .04). CONCLUSIONS: In toddlers and preschool-age children with epilepsy, daily screen time exposure is greater and sleep duration is shorter than the recommended amount, with increased screen time exposure associated with disturbed sleep. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Parents need to be informed about the possible adverse impact of screen time exposure on children's sleep and health as well as the importance of limiting screen time exposure to <1 hr per day for their toddlers and preschool-age children with epilepsy.