Relationship between parents’ health literacy and children’s sleep problems in Japan

Given that the preschool age is a period of rapid functional and cognitive development, sleep in preschoolers is of critical importance [1, 2]. It has been reported that preschoolers in Asian countries have significantly later bedtime and shorter total sleep duration compared with other Western countries. Particularly among the Asian countries, Mindell et al. revealed that preschoolers in Japan have the shortest sleep time [3]. Sleep is important not only in terms of quantity, but also in terms of quality and habits among all generations, including preschoolers. The definition of “sleep problems” is all-encompassing and includes sleep quality, sleep quantity, and sleep habits [4] Sleep problems among preschoolers aged 4–5 years are associated with anxiety, [5] and among children aged 4–11 years, are associated with behavior problems and anxious/depressed mood [6]. Additionally, sleep problems among children aged 4–5 years predict poor health-related quality of life, behavior, language, and learning scores at age 6–7 years [7]. Of note, in a previous study, sleep problems at age 4 predicted adolescent depression and anxiety, and the strength of the relationship between sleep disorders and anxiety or depression increased with age [8]. Thus, sleep problems in preschoolers cause poor health outcomes in both the short-term and the long-term.

The construct of health literacy (HL) is crucial as a factor to maintain or improve health [9]. HL is defined as “personal skills that enable individuals to obtain, understand, and use information to make decisions and take actions that will have an impact on their health” [10]. The definition of HL has been modified and broadened, and it now consists of three subscales: functional HL, communicative HL, and critical HL. Low HL in adults has been associated with poor health outcomes such as obesity, [11] underweight, [12] and depression [13]. Further, low HL among parents has been reported to be associated with poor health outcomes for their children, such as poor body mass index (BMI), [14] low sleep duration, [15] and oral health deterioration [16]. In summary, parents’ HL is not only associated with their own health outcomes, but also their children’s health outcomes. Previous studies have suggested that parents play an important role in preschoolers’ sleep [17, 18]. Many previous studies have investigated the relationship between parents’ HL and children’s sleep duration [15, 18]; however, very few studies have focused on all aspects of sleep, including the regularity and quality of sleep. In addition, the relationship between parents’ HL and sleep problems among children is not clear. Therefore, we hypothesized that if parents have low HL, their children are more likely to have sleep problems. In this study, we investigate the true relationship between parents’ HL and sleep problems in children by comprehensively investigating parents’ HL, sleep problems in children, and the related factors.

Clarifying these relationships will serve as a breakthrough for improving children’s sleep disorders and, ultimately, their long-term health outcomes through interventions designed for their parents. The purpose of the present study was to assess the relationship between parents’ HL and sleep problems in their children.

Figure 1 shows the participant flow during this study. We distributed the questionnaires to 537 parents, of whom 362 (67.4%) agreed to participate in this study. Parents whose questionnaire responses had missing values (n = 8) were excluded. After the exclusions, the final sample for the analysis consisted of 354 parents and their children.

Table 1 shows the demographic differences between the low and high HL groups. The number of participants in the high HL group was 255 (72.0%) and that in the low HL group was 99 (28.0%). The average CSHQ-J score was significantly lower in the high HL group (45.3 ± 6.0 points) than in the low HL group (46.8 ± 5.9 points) (p = 0.043). In addition, parents’ BMI (p = 0.032) and years of education (p = 0.032) were higher in the high HL group than in the low HL group.

The correlation between parents’ HL and children’s sleeping habits is illustrated in Fig. 2. There was a significantly negative correlation between parents’ HL and CSHQ-J (p = 0.0378, r = − 0.11).

Tables 2 and 3 show the results of the regression analyses. In the univariate regression analyses, CSHQ-J scores were statistically significantly associated with parents’ HL; nevertheless, children’s sleep duration did not show a statistically significant relationship with parents’ HL. In the multiple regression analysis, parents’ HL remained statistically significant in predicting CSHQ-J in children after adjustment for all other confounding factors such as children’s age, sex, IOTF, and number of siblings (R² = 0.16, β = − 0.12; p = 0.03), but not the sleep duration of children (R² = 0.17, β = 0.09; p = 0.08) (Model 1).

In addition to Model 2, parents’ HL remained statistically significant for predicting CSHQ-J in children after adjustment for parents’ age, sex, BMI, years of education, household income, and smoking status (R² = 0.25, β = − 0.11; p = 0.043), but not the sleep duration of children (R² = 0.24, β = 0.04; p = 0.44).

To our knowledge, this is the first study to assess the relationship between parents’ HL and children’s sleep problems. Consistent with our hypothesis, we found a statistically significant relationship between parents’ HL and sleep problems in children.

There are two possible reasons for the association between parents’ HL and sleep disorder in children. First, parents with low HL may be likely to create inappropriate living conditions and engage in parenting behaviors unfavorable to children’s sleep. A previous study suggested that low HL in parents is associated with suboptimal parenting practices and inadequate parenting behavior, such as putting a TV in the child’s bedroom [18]. Another study suggested that parents’ bedtime and the frequency of parents’ presence at the children’s bedtime are linked to children’s sleep problems [24]. Therefore, the behaviors of parents with low HL may play a role in their children’s sleep problems.

Second, parents with low HL may face mental health issues and parenting-related stress. For example, a study suggested that people with low HL were more likely to be depressed [25]. Another study suggested that parents of children with sleep problems were more likely to experience parenting stress, mental health issues, and depression [26]. Although studies investigating the mechanism between parents’ HL and children’s sleep problems are sparse, issues related to the mental health of parents with low HL may affect their children’s sleep problems.

In the present study, sleep duration was not measured directly but was reported by the parents. Previous studies have shown that children’s parent-measured sleep duration overestimated actual sleep duration by approximately 30 min [27]. Therefore, children’s sleep duration reported by their parents may not always be accurate and the results may be highly variable depending on the individual reporting.

According to Fig. 2, the parents’ HL scores were significantly but negatively correlated with the CSHQ-J scores, albeit the correlation was weak (r = − 0.11; weak: r < 0.4, moderate: 0.4 ≤ r < 0.6, strong: 0.6 ≤ r < 0.8). Moreover, parents’ HL was independently associated with CSHQ-J scores after adjusting for other confounding factors. This suggests that improving parents’ HL may lead to improvements in children’s sleep problems. In fact, there are many reports of HL interventions causing improvements in HL [28]. HL education might improve sleep quality but not sleep duration. More studies are required to examine the effectiveness of intervention for parents’ HL in the future. Further, although the present study dealt with the total CSHQ-J scores, investigating each item on the CSHQ-J may provide an opportunity to identify the causes of sleep problems in children.

There are several limitations to the present study. First, as this is a cross-sectional study, a causal relationship between parents’ HL and other factors cannot be concluded, and the mechanism by which parents’ HL affects sleeping problems in children is unclear. Second, a sampling bias may have occurred due to the small sample size and the fact that the data were collected in one particular area, that is, Chitose City, Hokkaido. Finally, it is possible that we did not collect enough information relevant to parents’ HL, and there are unknown confounding factors. This is evident from Table 2, which shows adjusted R² = 0.25, meaning that only 25% of children’s sleeping problems were predicted by the factors we studied.

The findings of this study suggest that parents’ HL independently affects the sleep problems of their children after adjusting for all other confounding factors. These results suggest that interventions targeting parents’ HL are needed to improve children’s sleep problems. Additionally, children’s sleep problems need to be examined in more detail.