Sleep deficiency and symptoms of pain, fatigue, and depressed mood in youth with and without childhood systemic lupus erythematosus

Dahee Wi; Tonya M Palermo; Anne Stevens; Teresa M Ward

doi:10.5664/jcsm.11210

Sleep deficiency and symptoms of pain, fatigue, and depressed mood in youth with and without childhood systemic lupus erythematosus

J Clin Sleep Med. 2024 May 13. doi: 10.5664/jcsm.11210. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Dahee Wi¹, Tonya M Palermo², Anne Stevens³, Teresa M Ward⁴

Affiliations

¹ University of Washington, School of Nursing.
² Department of Anesthesia and Pain, University of Washington, School of Medicine.
³ Department of Rheumatology, University of Washington, School of Medicine.
⁴ Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, School of Medicine.

PMID: 38738616
DOI: 10.5664/jcsm.11210

Abstract

Study objectives: To describe and compare sleep deficiency and symptoms of pain, fatigue, and depressed mood in youth with childhood Systemic lupus erythematosus (cSLE) to a healthy comparison group of youth; and to test the associations between sleep and symptoms of pain, fatigue, and depressed mood in youth with cSLE.

Methods: Forty-three youth (23 youth with cSLE; 20 age, sex-matched healthy youth) wore actigraphs and completed sleep diaries for 10 days, and completed self-report questionnaires on sleep quality, pain, fatigue, and depressed mood.

Results: On average, both groups had a total sleep time of less than 7 hours. Youth with cSLE had worse sleep efficiency (73.3%) and sleep regularity index scores (55.4) compared to the healthy comparison group of youth (79.2%, 60.1, respectively). Youth with cSLE had worse pain (p = .03) and fatigue (p = .004) compared to the healthy comparison group. Negative associations were found among self-reported sleep quality, sleep satisfaction, and symptoms of pain, fatigue, and depressed mood in youth with cSLE and wake after sleep onset was positively associated with fatigue.

Conclusions: Poor sleep efficiency and sleep irregularity accompanied by symptoms of pain, fatigue, and depressed mood was prevalent in youth with cSLE. Youth with lupus should be encouraged to maintain a regular sleep schedule. Since, this is the first study to incorporate objective sleep and sleep regularity measures in youth with cSLE, additional studies with objective and self-report sleep measures are needed to replicate our findings.

Keywords: actigraphy; childhood systemic lupus erythematosus; depressed mood; fatigue; healthy youth; pain; sleep deficiency; sleep diary; sleep regularity index.