Treatment of Sleep Disorders in Children with Atopic Dermatitis: What's New?

Abstract

Atopic dermatitis (AD), also known as atopic eczema, is a chronic and inflammatory disease caused by an interaction of genetic, immunological, and environmental factors. It is characterized by skin lesions and itching and progresses with periods of improvement and worsening. Patients with AD often experience sleep disorders, which leads to a worsening of the quality of life of patients and their families and may be associated with poorer school performance, behavioral and mood dysfunction, risk of short stature, metabolic syndrome, mental illness, neurocognitive dysfunction, psychiatric comorbidities such as anxiety, stress, depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Furthermore, sleep disturbances in children with AD have been associated with pruritus and greater severity of dermatitis. To this day, we do not have a curative treatment for this disease, but there is treatment, and it is possible to keep the disease under control. In these patients, controlling the condition is very important to improve the quality of sleep, at the same time, with better sleep there is greater control of AD. Despite being very common in AD, we currently have few studies on sleep disorders and their treatment in this disease, and there is no consensus on the therapeutic approach. We carried out a descriptive study with a narrative review of the literature. The research was based on studies published in English and Portuguese between January 2013 and October 2023, electronically in several databases, such as PubMed, Scientific Electronic Library Online, and Latin American and Caribbean Literature in Health Sciences. The objective of this review is to describe possible treatments for sleep disorders in AD, in order to contribute to a better understanding and clinical management of these cases, seeking to minimize the impact on the lives of these patients.