A systematic review of the effectiveness of sleep hygiene in children with ADHD

Parents’ Experiences of Weighted Blankets’ Impact on Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Sleep Problems—A Qualitative Study

“…Thus, weighted blankets may serve as a part of a sleep intervention to improve sleep routines for these children. The benefits of improved sleep routines for this target group were confirmed in a systematic review [ 45 ] and are important because children with ADHD more often show bedtime resistance, compared to healthy peers [ 7 , 46 ]. Since children are closely tied to their parents in relation to sleep routines, modifications (behavioral, environmental, and cognitive) have to be designed together with both parents and children to meet their needs and preferences [ 21 , 22 ].…”

A Systematic Review of Sleep and Circadian Rhythms in Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

“…We identified the need for such a review through a survey of the extant systematic reviews on sleep and/or circadian rhythms and ADHD via the Prospero and Cochrane registers of existing reviews in this field (supplementary material). The existing literature reviews in this topic either narrowly concentrate upon discussing possible treatment strategies and therapeutic approaches (Alamar et al, 2015; Bioulac et al, 2015; Cortese et al, 2013; Hvolby et al, 2015; Nikles et al, 2020; Tsai et al, 2016), or review the relationships between specific sleep features and ADHD in smaller systematic reviews focused on specific sleep feautres (Martin et al, 2019; Mogavero et al, 2018; Polmann et al, 2020; Sadeh et al, 2006; Martins et al, 2019; Scarpelli et al, 2019; Walters et al, 2008). Further, a number of reviews focus generally on the pharmacotherapy of ADHD, and as such sleep issues are of secondary interest in these works (Abdelgadir et al, 2018; Cortese et al, 2018; Krinzinger et al, 2019; Punja et al, 2016; Storebø et al, 2016, 2018).…”

The effectiveness of weighted blankets on sleep and everyday activities – A retrospective follow-up study of children and adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and/or autism spectrum disorder

“…However, it is possible that these findings are related to a perception of improved sleep brought about by improved sleep hygiene consisting of a set of behavioural, environmental, or cognitive modifications to improve sleep (i.e. modification of bedtime and bedtime routines, restriction of electronic media use, restriction of caffeine use, modifications to bedroom or sleeping environment), which are often the first-line treatment recommendations [75,76]. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to assume that the weighted blanket had a positive impact on participants' sleep in the current study as 80% of them had chosen to use the blanket for one to three years, and 81% of the participants described improvements in sleeping better throughout the night.…”

“…Although subjective support for weighted blanket use exists from parents, caregivers, and children and adults with ADHD or ASD, it would be beneficial for occupational therapy research to strive to apply robust research designs to evaluate the effectiveness of this intervention on everyday activities, as highlighted by Green [48] and Tester and Foss [49], using more objective, and validated measures of sleep. This is especially important as current systematic reviews [52,57,75] report on narrow sampling methodology, small sample sizes, and low-level designs in the small number of studies on the effectiveness of weighted blankets. In addition, scrutinizing the routines concerning the process of prescribing weighted blankets among adults is urgent, as this study indicated that more children are prescribed weighted blankets compared with adults.…”

“…This current study adds to the body of research on weighted blankets and children and adults with ADHD and/or ASD in three distinct ways. First, this study included a more heterogeneous sample, by including adults with ADHD and/or ASD, than early research which has largely focussed on examining sleep in children with ASD [75,80]. Second, the inclusion of adults with ADHD and/or ASD adds to the modest body of research on adults and weighted blanket interventions.…”