Natalie Barnett, Maristella Lucchini, Daianna Rodriguez, Shambhavi Thakur, W P Fifer
Presented at World Sleep Congress, Rome, 2022
Abstract
Introduction
Parental confidence has been linked to improved child outcomes, as well as better overall parental health and wellbeing. The determinants of parental confidence in the context of their infants’ sleep are not well understood. This study aimed to examine the associations between parental confidence and sleep among parents of infants who use a commercially available video sleep monitor and an associated mobile sleep health application.
Materials and Methods
This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of New York State Psychiatric Institute. Parents of 576 US infants (age 9.13±1.8 months, 49.6% male) were recruited for this study from the active customer base of Nanit sleep monitoring system. The Nanit system, a commercially available auto-videosomnographic device, includes a personalized, data-driven app that assists parents in understanding their infant’s sleep health and offers tips and recommendations for improved sleep health. Parents were asked to complete the The Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire-Revised (BISQ-R) and demographic questions via RedCap (75.8% mothers, 23.6% fathers, 0.5% other). The BISQ-R includes parent-reported sleep metrics, a Likert-scale question about the parent’s self-reported confidence in dealing with their infant’s sleep as well as a question asking whether they perceive their infant’s sleep as a problem.
Results
The majority (87%) of parents reported that they were very confident or somewhat confident in managing their infant's sleep and only 17.2% reported they perceived their infant as having a sleep problem. Parents reported their infant’s average nighttime total sleep time (nighttime TST) was 10.68 ± 1.26 hrs and their infant’s average bedtime was 7:30pm ± 0.86 hr. Infants’ nighttime TST differed by parents’ education level, wherein infants of parents with a high school education slept significantly less. There were no significant differences in parental confidence or parental perception of their infants having a sleep problem among parents with different education levels.
Conclusions
Our findings demonstrate that parents with access to the personalized sleep health information provided by the Nanit sleep system reported being confident in managing their infants’ sleep. Infants of parents with college or graduate level education had longer nighttime TST than infants of parents with a high school education. Parental education was not significantly associated with their confidence in managing their infant’s sleep. Future studies should include additional socio ecological factors to further examine influences on infants’ sleep health. Additionally, further work will aim to determine the influence of the Nanit system on parental confidence considering the higher levels reported in this sample than have been reported previously in a similar sample.
About the Researchers
The researchers included Natalie Barnett, Maristella Lucchini, Daianna Rodriguez, Shambhavi Thakur, W P Fifer.
- 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.
- 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.