It Takes a Village: Multidisciplinary Approach to Screening and Prevention of Pediatric Sleep Issues

Abstract

Sleep is essential to human development. Poor sleep can have significant effects on cognition, learning and memory, physical and behavioral health, and social-emotional well-being. This paper highlights the prevalence of common pediatric sleep problems and posits that a multidisciplinary approach to the assessment and intervention of sleep problems is ideal. Primary care providers are often the first professionals to discuss sleep issues with youth and families. However, dentists, otolaryngologists, childcare providers, school personnel, and behavioral health providers have a vital role in screening and prevention, providing intervention, and monitoring the progress of daily functioning. The strengths of this approach include better provider-to-provider and provider-to-family communication, streamlined assessment and intervention, earlier identification of sleep issues with more efficient referral, and longer-term monitoring of progress and impact on daily functioning. Barriers to this approach include difficulty initiating and maintaining collaboration among providers, limited provider time to obtain the necessary patient permission to collaborate among all multidisciplinary providers, lack of financial support for consultation and collaboration outside of seeing patients face-to-face, geographic location, and limited resources within communities. Research investigating the utility of this model and the overall impact on pediatric patient sleep issues is warranted and strongly encouraged.

Disparities in Sleep Health and Potential Intervention Models

“…76 Given the burden placed on primary care physicians to address many health domains in a short well child visit, addressing sleep via other methods and providers is warranted. 77 Integrating behavioral health providers into primary care to address sleep is a feasible yet underresearched option. 76 Given that implicit racial/ethnic bias in clinicians can impact patient care, 78 research on methods to improve pediatric sleep disparities should also focus on clinician factors.…”

Sleep problem screening of young children by speech-language pathologists: A mixed-methods feasibility study

“…Disciplines such as dentists, child care providers, and school personnel-but not SLPs-have been proposed a primary care provider "extenders" for sleep problem screening and intervention (Sevecke & Meadows, 2018). SLPs are well-positioned to incorporate sleep education and screening into regular practice; many works in educational settings or practices alongside occupational and physical therapists where they work with children.…”