0990 MOTHER-FATHER AGREEMENT AND ONE-YEAR STABILITY OF CHILDREN’S SLEEP FUNCTIONING

Abstract

Mothers and fathers have only moderate agreement in their ratings of children’s emotional and behavioral functioning, which in turn has implications for clinical assessment. However, we are unaware of any study that has examined mother-father agreement of children’s sleep functioning. The present study evaluated the concurrent and prospective agreement of mother and father ratings of sleep in a large, community-based sample of Spanish children. Mothers and fathers separately rated sleep functioning in 536 Spanish children (48% girls) in third grade and again one year later. A Total Sleep Disturbance scale was used, in addition to Sleep Habits, Nighttime Waking, Parasomnia, Sleep Onset Delay, Daytime Sleepiness, and Sleep Duration Variability subscales. Mean sleep functioning scores did not differ between mothers’ and fathers’ ratings, with the sole exception of higher Daytime Sleepiness scores on mothers’ ratings compared to fathers’ ratings in Grade 3 (but not at Grade 4). Similar strong correlations were found between mothers’ and fathers’ ratings of child sleep, both concurrently and over time. Specifically, for Total Sleep Disturbance scale, mothers’ and fathers’ ratings were correlated at .79 in Grade 3 (concurrent), .80 in Grade 4 (concurrent), and .64 from Grade 3 to 4 (longitudinal). Similar correlations were found for the Sleep Habits, Nighttime Waking, and Parasomnia subscales. Weaker mother-father correlations were found for the Daytime Sleepiness, Sleep Onset Delay, and Sleep Duration Variability subscales. Within-rater associations over the one-year period were also lower for these three subscales. Mother and father ratings of their child’s sleep functioning generally showed strong agreement and 1-year stability. Agreement and discrepancies in parent ratings can provide information regarding the nature and course of socio-emotional and behavioral functioning. Further study is needed to understand how agreement of sleep ratings specifically can inform clinical practice. Secretariat of State for Research, Development and Innovation, Ministry of Economic and Competitiveness, Spanish Government, PSI2014-52605-R.