Maristella Lucchini, Shambhavi Thakur, Sarah Berger, Liat Tikotzky, Natalie Barnett
Presented at ESRS 2024
Introduction
Several studies have shown how poor sleep health in the general population is associated with lower productivity at work, with significant socio-economic repercussions. Although new parents are known to be at high risk for poor sleep, few studies have explored the relationship between sleep and productivity in this population. In this study we investigated the relationship between parental insomnia symptoms and productivity.
Methods
Among Nanit camera users, we recruited 270 parents of infants 1-6 months old (70% mothers) who had returned to work. Participants completed the Insomnia Severity Scale (ISI) and responded to questions relative to their employment status and performance at work in the past month and in the previous 2 years (scale 0-10). Individuals scoring <7 on the ISI were classified into the healthy group; those scoring between 7-14 into the subthreshold insomnia group, those scoring >15 into the moderate/severe insomnia group. Data were analyzed using linear regressions, adjusting for infants’ age, mother/father and number of children.
Results
Almost half of the parents reported missing entire days of work in the previous month with 32.6% reporting missing between 1-5 days and 10.4% missing more than 5 days. The number of days missed at work was not associated with insomnia symptoms or with parent gender, but was associated with age of the infant (β=-0.43±0.2,p=0.03).
Compared to the healthy group, reporting moderate/severe insomnia symptoms was predictive of worse current performance at work (β=-1.0±0.45,p=0.02) and a larger decrease from the performance in the previous 2 years (β=-1.1±0.4,p=0.01).
Younger baby age was predictive of worse current performance (β=0.2±0.09,p=0.04). Compared to fathers, mothers reported larger decreases in work performance over the previous two years (β=0.6±0.3,p=0.02). Parents with more than one child reported a smaller decrease (β=-0.7±0.2,p=0.008) in performance over the past 2 years than parents with one child.
Conclusion
Insomnia symptoms in parents of infants were significantly associated with poorer work performance and larger decreases in performance from the previous 2 years. Further investigation is needed to understand possible socio-economic consequences and public health interventions that could alleviate the burden for parents.
About the Researchers
The researchers included Maristella Lucchini, Shambhavi Thakur, Sarah Berger, Liat Tikotzky, Natalie Barnett
- Dr. Maristella Lucchini serves as Senior Clinical Researcher at Nanit. In her role, Maristella works to secure grant funding in collaboration with Nanit’s university research partners and supports the development of the company’s research collaborations around the world. Previously, Maristella served as an Assistant Research Scientist in the Division of Developmental Neuroscience, Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical Center where she led projects across several cohorts focusing on sleep health for pregnant and postpartum women and their children. Maristella’s research focused on underserved communities and sleep health disparities in the perinatal period. During her years as a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in the Department of Psychiatry, Maristella was selected to participate in the American Academy of Sleep Medicine Young Investigator Research Forum. She holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano.
- Shambhavi Thakur serves as Clinical Research Data Analyst at Nanit. She holds a Masters degree in Health Informatics and Life Sciences. She oversees the research collaborations with various universities and analyzes sleep data for internal as well as external studies.
- Dr. Sarah Berger is a Professor of Psychology at the College of Staten Island and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She received her PhD from New York University. Dr. Berger was an American Association of University Women Postdoctoral Research Fellow and a Fulbright Research Scholar. Dr. Berger studies the interaction between cognitive and motor development in infancy, particularly response inhibition and its implications for the allocation of attention in very young children. A line of National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded work, in collaboration with Dr. Anat Scher, has been the first to study the impact of sleep on motor problem solving in infancy.
- Dr. Liat Tikotzky is an Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in Israel. She was a visiting researcher at the department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford university from 2008 to 2010. Dr. Tikotzky is a licensed clinical psychologist, with specific training and expertise in infant, child, and parent sleep. Her research focuses generally on the relationships between parenting and sleep.
-
Dr. Natalie Barnett serves as VP of Clinical Research at Nanit. Natalie initiated sleep research collaborations at Nanit and in her current role, Natalie oversees collaborations with researchers at hospitals and universities around the world who use the Nanit camera to better understand pediatric sleep and leads the internal sleep and development research programs at Nanit. Natalie holds a Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of New England in Australia and a Postgraduate Certificate in Pediatric Sleep Science from the University of Western Australia. Natalie was an Assistant Professor in the Neurogenetics Unit at NYU School of Medicine prior to joining Nanit. Natalie is also the voice of Nanit's science-backed, personalized sleep tips delivered to users throughout their baby's first few years.