Health Sciences Faculty Scholarship

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/10323/2667

Browse

Browsing Health Sciences Faculty Scholarship by Subject "Children"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Nightwatch: Sleep disruption of caregivers of children with asthma in Detroit
    (2013-10) Cheezum, Rebecca R.; Parker, Edith A.; Sampson, Natalie R.; Lewis, Toby C.; O’Toole, Ashley; Patton, Jean; Robins, Thomas G.; Keirns, Carla C.
    Caregiving for ill loved ones can impact sleep quality and quantity. Insufficient sleep has been associated with worse physical and mental health outcomes, as well as an impact on work performance and ability to accomplish necessary tasks. While some research has looked at the sleep of caregivers of loved ones with chronic illness and found that they experience poorer sleep, little is known about the impact of caring for a child with asthma on the caregiver’s sleep and the ways in which their sleep may be affected. Community Action Against Asthma, a community-based participatory research partnership, conducted interviews with semi-structured and open-ended questions with 40 caregivers of children with asthma who live in Detroit. We found that caregivers regularly experience poor quality sleep due to sleeping lightly in order to listen for the child’s symptoms, waking multiple times to check on the child due to worry and providing care for him or her when he or she experiences symptoms in the middle of the night. Results of the Epworth Sleepiness Scale indicate that 12.5% of caregivers received a score of 16 or more, the score on the scale used to indicate likely presence of a sleep disorder, and 42.5% had a score of 10 or more, indicating excessive sleepiness. Sleep disturbance in caregivers is an under-recognized consequence of childhood asthma with implications for providers caring for children with asthma.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Primary school children's health behaviors, attitudes, and body mass index after a 10-week lifestyle intervention with follow-up
    (2018-05-09) Brown, Elise C.; Buchan, Duncan S.; Drignei, Dorin; Wyatt, Frank B.; Kilgore, Lon; Cavana, Jonathan; Baker, Julien S.
    Background: Given the current global child obesity epidemic, testing the effectiveness of interventions in reducing obesity and its influencers is paramount. The purpose of this study was to determine immediate and long-term changes in body mass index and psychosocial variables following a 10-week lifestyle intervention. Methods: Seven hundred and seventy participants (8.75 ± 0.98 years of age, 379 boys and 391 girls) took part in the study. Participants had height, weight, and psychosocial questionnaires assessed at pre- and post-control, pre- and post-intervention, and 6-months post-intervention. Participants completed a weekly 10-week intervention consisting of healthy eating and physical activity education, physical activity, parental involvement, and behavior change techniques. Regression models were fit with correlated errors where the correlation occurred only between time points, not between subjects, and the nesting effects of school and area deprivation were controlled. Results: Regression models revealed a significant decrease in body mass index from pre- to post-intervention of 0.8512 kg/m2 (P = 0.0182). No Changes in body mass index occurred from post-intervention to 6-month follow-up (P = 0.5446). The psychosocial variables did not significantly change. Conclusions: This lifestyle intervention may be an effective means for improving body mass index in primary school children in the short-term if the duration of the intervention is increased, but these changes may not be sustained without on-going support.