Screening for maternal fatigue should be part of the dermatological consultation for atopic dermatitis

A recently published longitudinal population-based study has been set up in to provide better insight into how variations in the child’s atopic dermatitis (AD) activity and severity over time affect parental sleep.
In an English cohort of 11 649 mother-child pairs, it confirmed that sleep disturbances were common among mothers of children with AD followed up from birth through age 11 years.

But, if sleep duration and early morning awakening were found to be similar, mothers of children with active AD were more likely to report:

• Difficulty falling asleep
• Insufficient sleep
• Daytime exhaustion.

And worse maternal sleep outcomes were associated with child’s AD severity.

However, its results suggest that child’s sleep disturbances did not fully explain maternal sleep disturbances, which may be explained by other factors, as anxiety, psychological distress and depression, already observed in parents of children with AD.

This finding is of utmost importance since chronically sleep-deprived, exhausted, or depressed caregivers may be less equipped to implement time-consuming treatment regimens, regulate their child’s behavior, and help the child cope with AD. That is why the authors propose that clinicians caring for children with AD screen for caregiver sleep disturbances and fatigue, engage mothers in discussion about their emotional health, and consider offering resources for psychosocial support, to improve their child’ AD daily management.