Prevalence of Sleep Disturbances in Pediatric Cancer Patients and Their Diagnosis and Management

Beyond presence of symptoms: Self-reported psychosocial distress interference among outpatient youth with cancer and other life-limiting conditions

BACKGROUND

Youth with life-limiting conditions face significant psychosocial challenges (e.g., symptoms of anxiety, depression, and pain) throughout illness and treatment. Without appropriate intervention, this can negatively affect long-term outcomes (e.g., disease management, health-related quality of life). Prompt identification and appropriate attention to distress can mitigate these effects. We aimed to determine the prevalence and severity of distress interference among outpatient youth with cancer and other life-limiting conditions, using the Checking IN screener.

PROCEDURE

Within a larger study across four hospital centers, English-speaking pediatric outpatients aged 8-21, and a caregiver-proxy-reporter, completed a brief distress screener. Descriptive analyses were used to characterize the sample and evaluate reported distress symptoms.

RESULTS

Checking IN was completed by 100 participants, aged 8-21 (M = 14.27, SD = 3.81); caregivers completed an equivalent proxy screener. Youth most frequently endorsed fatigue (moderate: n = 50, 50.0%; high: n = 21, 21.0%), paying attention (moderate: n = 45, 45.0%; high: n = 16, 16.0%), and sleep difficulty (moderate: n = 46, 46.0%; high: n = 13; 13.0%) as problematic. Caregivers proxy reported fatigue (moderate: n = 46, 46.0%; high: n = 32, 32.0%), worry (moderate: n = 56, 56.0%; high: n = 10, 10.0%), and sleep difficulty (moderate: n = 47, 47.0%; high: n = 14; 14.0%) as most problematic. Group differences between youth and caregiver responses were not significant.

CONCLUSIONS

Youth self-report via Checking IN can detect psychosocial distress interference. By directing resources based on real-time assessment of symptom interference, there is potential to simplify outpatient psychosocial screening and improve referral timeliness and specificity, thus allowing for more effective attention to evolving symptoms of distress.

International consensus on sleep problems in pediatric palliative care: Paving the way

OBJECTIVE

Sleep problems constitute a common and heterogeneous complaint in pediatric palliative care (PPC), where they often contribute to disease morbidity and cause additional distress to children and adolescents and their families already facing the burden of life-threatening and life-limiting conditions. Despite the significant impact of sleep problems, clinical evidence is lacking. The application of general pediatric sleep recommendations appears insufficient to address the unique challenges of the PPC dimension in terms of disease variability, duration, comorbidities, complexity of needs, and particular features of sleep problems related to hospice care. Therefore, we initiated an international project aimed at establishing a multidisciplinary consensus.

METHODS

A two-round Delphi approach was adopted to develop recommendations in the areas of Definition, Assessment/Monitoring, and Treatment. After selecting a panel of 72 worldwide experts, consensus (defined as ≥75% agreement) was reached through an online survey.

RESULTS

At the end of the two voting sessions, we obtained 53 consensus recommendations based on expert opinion on sleep problems in PPC.

CONCLUSIONS

This study addresses the need to personalize sleep medicine's approach to the palliative care setting and its peculiarities. It provides the first international consensus on sleep problems in PPC and highlight the urgent need for global guidance to improve sleep-related distress in this vulnerable population and their caregivers. Our findings represent a crucial milestone that will hopefully enable the development of guidelines in the near future.

An exploratory study of sleep habits in school-aged survivors of retinoblastoma

OBJECTIVE/BACKGROUND

Retinoblastoma is an ocular cancer diagnosed in early childhood. Previous research has indicated the impact of cancer treatment on sleep, but little is known about how sleep is impacted among survivors of retinoblastoma. The current study aimed to describe sleep habits of school-age survivors of retinoblastoma, to examine associations between sleep and quality of life, and to examine concordance between parent and child reports of sleep habits.

PATIENTS/METHODS

Sixty-nine survivors of retinoblastoma (Mage = 10.89, SD = 1.07, 50.7% female; 56.5% unilateral disease) and their caregivers participated, providing information on both self- and parent-reported sleep habits, quality of life, and demographic data.

RESULTS

Greater sleep concerns than national norms were reported by parents (bedtime resistance (t(58) = 2.69, p = .009), greater sleep onset delay (t(66) = 2.46, p = .017), shorter sleep duration (t(57) = 2.12, p = .038), increased daytime sleepiness (t(53) = 6.45, p= <.001)) and children (sleep location (t(61) = 2.39, p = .02), restless legs syndrome (t(62) = -2.21, p = .03), parasomnias (t(64) = 19.19, p=<.001)) . Both children and parents of children who received enucleation endorsed greater sleep concerns across several domains (e.g., electronic use before bed, sleep-disordered breathing). Child- and parent-reported sleep concerns were generally associated with decreased quality of life. Finally, child- and parent-report of sleep habits appeared generally consistent.

CONCLUSIONS

Survivors of retinoblastoma experience sleep difficulties. As such, assessment and targeted intervention is important to mitigate any effects on quality of life. Future research should examine sleep habits of survivors of retinoblastoma across cultures and developmental periods.

Sleep Disturbance and Its Association With Sluggish Cognitive Tempo and Attention in Pediatric Brain Tumor Survivors

Background

Pediatric brain tumor (PBT) survivors are at risk for developing sleep disturbances. While in other pediatric populations sleep disturbance has been associated with worse cognitive functioning, it is unclear to what extent this relationship generalizes to PBT survivors. The aim of the current study was to assess the relationship between sleep disturbance and aspects of cognition, including sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) as well as attention and working memory.

Materials and Methods

Eighty-three PBT survivors 6–18 years of age who were at least 3 months post-treatment were included in the present cross-sectional study. Level of sleep disturbance was measured as a composite score reflecting various sleep problems as rated by caregivers. Cognitive measures included caregiver-ratings of sluggish cognitive tempo and attention problems, as well as performance-based cognitive measures assessing attention and executive functioning. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to assess associations between sleep and cognition.

Results

Of all caregivers, 32.5% reported one or more sleep disturbances as “very/often true” and over 68% of caregivers rated at least one sleep-related item as “somewhat true.” Of all cognitive variables, scores were most frequently impaired for SCT (30%). A higher level of sleep disturbance was associated with worse SCT and parent-rated attention problems. Associations between sleep and performance-based cognitive measures assessing attention and working memory were not statistically significant.

Conclusion

Findings of the current study highlight the importance of further investigation into the relationship between sleep and cognition in PBT survivors, which may assist efforts to maximize cognitive outcome and health-related quality of life in PBT survivors. The current study additionally suggests further investigation of SCT in this population is warranted, as it may be more sensitive to detecting possible associations with sleep disturbance relative to discrete measures that assess cognitive performance under ideal circumstances.

Actigraphy-Based Characteristics of Sleep in Paediatric Cancer Patients in Remission and a Comparison with Their Healthy Peers in the Recovery Stay

BACKGROUND

Previous research has demonstrated that paediatric cancer survivors (PCS) have lower sleep quality than their healthy peers. However, the research to date has focused mainly on self-reported data. Therefore, the aim of this cross-sectional study was to characterise selected sleep parameters in PCS using objective monitoring techniques and to compare them with a control group (CG) of their healthy peers during a structured recovery stay. A specific objective was to characterise sleep with respect to gender, age, and cancer type.

METHODS

26 PCS and 38 CG aged 7-15 years participated in the study. Selected sleep indicators (time in bed, total sleep time, sleep efficiency) were objectively assessed with an Actigraph wGT3X-BT accelerometer for 12 days during the recovery stay.

RESULTS

No significant differences were found between the PCS and CG groups in terms of the selected sleep parameters. The total time in bed was 543.1 min/day in the PCS and 537.2 min/day in the CG (p=0.91). The total sleep time was 455.3 min/day in the PCS and 457.5 min/day in the CG (p=0.57). Sleep efficiency was 85.3% in the PCS and 86.3% in the CG (p=0.36). Sleep efficiency >85% was achieved by 62% of the PCS (n=16) and 68% of the CG (n=26). There were no significant differences in sleep parameters in terms of variables such as gender, age, or cancer type.

CONCLUSION

The results of our study suggest that - under the same conditions - the PCS did not differ from their healthy peers in terms of the indicators of time in bed, total sleep time, and sleep efficiency. No significant differences according to age, gender, or cancer type were found.