COVID-19 instructional approaches (in-person, online, hybrid), school start times, and sleep in over 5,000 U.S. adolescents.

STUDY OBJECTIVES: To examine associations among instructional approaches, school start times, and sleep during the COVID-19 pandemic in a large, nationwide sample of U.S. adolescents. METHODS: Cross-sectional, anonymous self-report survey study of a community-dwelling sample of adolescents (grades 6-12), recruited through social media outlets in October/November 2020. Participants reported on instructional approach (in-person, online/synchronous, online/asynchronous) for each weekday (past week), school start times (in-person or online/synchronous days), and bedtimes (BT) and wake times (WT) for each identified school type and weekends/no school days. Sleep opportunity was calculated as BT-to-WT interval. Night-to-night sleep variability was calculated with mean square successive differences. RESULTS: Respondents included 5,245 racially and geographically diverse students (~50% female). BT and WT were earliest for in-person instruction; followed by online/synchronous days. Sleep opportunity was longer on individual nights students did not have scheduled instruction (>1.5 h longer for online/asynchronous than in-person). More students obtained sufficient sleep with later school start times. However, even with the same start times, more students with online/synchronous instruction obtained sufficient sleep than in-person instruction. Significantly greater night-to-night variability in sleep-wake patterns was observed for students with in-person hybrid schedules versus students with online/synchronous + asynchronous schedules. CONCLUSIONS: These findings provide important insights regarding the association between instructional approach and school start times on the timing, amount, and variability of sleep in U.S. adolescents. Given the public health consequences of short and variable sleep in adolescents, results may be useful for education and health policy decision-making for post-pandemic secondary schools.

Pediatric behavioral sleep medicine in the era of telemedicine: psychology trainee perspectives.

The worldwide coronavirus pandemic in 2020 radically changed the landscape of psychology service provision and training, with rapid rollouts of telemedicine to promote safe access to care. In this perspective article, we share the experiences of 4 psychology trainees, all of whom worked as psychology interns or postdoctoral fellows in pediatric behavioral sleep medicine during the pandemic. With restricted in-person visits and upheaval of children's normative sleep and school schedules, we directly observed growth in both need for psychological care and opportunity to provide this care remotely. Here, we summarize the unique challenges and learning opportunities we faced when trying to learn and implement evidence-based assessment and treatment of child and adolescent sleep difficulties during the pandemic. CITATION: McQuillan ME, Anderson A, Russo KD, Truss A, Honaker SM, Walsh KL. Pediatric behavioral sleep medicine in the era of telemedicine: psychology trainee perspectives. J Clin Sleep Med. 2021;17(9):1965-1967.