SynthesisSleep medicine2021
Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on sleep in children and adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Sleep medicine, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 82 papers, 8 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
82 citing papers in PubMed, 8 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 157 citations in OpenAlex.
- Practice Elements Used in Child Mass Trauma Interventions: A Systematic Review.Current psychiatry reports · 2025Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Evidence linking COVID-19 and the health/well-being of children and adolescents: an umbrella review.BMC medicine · 2024Pooled it
- Prevalence of sleep disturbances in children and adolescents during COVID-19 pandemic: a meta-analysis and systematic review of epidemiological surveys.Translational psychiatry · 2024Pooled it
- The prevalence and severity of insomnia symptoms during COVID-19: A global systematic review and individual participant data meta-analysis.Sleep medicine · 2022Pooled it
- Global burden of mental health problems among children and adolescents during COVID-19 pandemic: An umbrella review.Psychiatry research · 2022Pooled it
- Sleep disturbances during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review, meta-analysis, and meta-regression.Sleep medicine reviews · 2022Pooled it
- Impact of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on movement behaviours of children and adolescents: a systematic review.BMJ global health · 2022Pooled it
- Usefulness of Interventions Using a Smartphone Cognitive Behavior Therapy Application for Children With Mental Health Disorders: Prospective, Single-Arm, Uncontrolled Clinical Trial.JMIR formative research · 2025Trial
- Trial
- Prevalence and clinical features of depressed adolescents co-occurring insomnia and excessive daytime sleepiness symptoms.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2026Article
- COVID-19-induced educational disruptions and children's executive functioning: A longitudinal cohort study.Developmental psychology · 2026Article
- Examining Sleep-Related Problems in Youth With Misophonia.Journal of clinical psychology · 2026Article
- Lifestyle trajectories of boys and girls during the transition to secondary school in British Columbia, Canada, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Sociodemographic correlates of perceived COVID-19 impact on movement behaviors in Croatian school-aged children.Discover public health · 2026Article
- Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Swedish adolescents' mental well-being: the role of impulsivity, sleep, spirituality, and self-esteem.BMC psychology · 2025Article
- The future of paediatric sleep medicine: a blueprint for advancing the field.Journal of sleep research · 2025Review
- Association between perceived financial hardship and sleep duration among Korean adolescents.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Emotional Health of Children Under 6 Years in Washington, DC.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- COVID-19 Stress and Family Well-Being: The Role of Sleep in Mental Health Outcomes for Parents and Children.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
22 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveThis systematic review and meta-analysis were conducted to study the prevalence and pattern of sleep disturbances in children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic.
methodsMEDLINE, EMBASE, and Web of Science were searched for original studies describing sleep abnormalities in children and adolescents with or without pre-existing neurobehavioral disorders during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pooled estimates for various sleep abnormalities were calculated using a random-effect model.
resultsOf 371 articles screened, 16 studies were included. Among these, five studies were in preschool children, two were in children with pre-existing neurobehavioral disorders and the remaining were in school going children and adolescents. The outcome measures used for sleep were markedly heterogeneous across the studies. The pooled prevalence of any sleep disturbance in children during the pandemic was 54%(95%CI:50-57%). Interestingly, the prevalence in pre-school children was lower than pre-pandemic times (RR = 0.87; 95% CI:0.58-1.30) but this was not statistically significant. The pooled prevalence of children not meeting sleep recommendation was 49% (95%CI: 39-58%).
conclusionThe prevalence of sleep problems in children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic is alarming. Pre-school children had a trend towards relatively fewer sleep disturbances due to home confinement measures in comparison with pre-pandemic times. Sleep duration recommendations were not met in nearly half of healthy children. However, these conclusions need to be seen in light of limited literature on the topic, few included studies done in heterogenous populations, and dubious quality of inferences drawn from these studies which were predominantly online surveys. PROSPERO REGISTRATION ID: CRD42020213788.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.