Associations of social jetlag and emotional and behavioral problems among Chinese preschoolers

ABSTRACT

To describe the prevalence of social jetlag among preschoolers and explore its association with emotional and behavioral problems, we conducted a cross-sectional survey of healthy development among preschool children in 11 cities in October and November 2017. The study included 27 200 children aged 3–6 years and the questionnaires were completed exclusively by their parents or main caregivers. Social jetlag was calculated by difference of sleep midpoint between weekdays and weekends. Emotional and behavioral problems (emotional symptoms, conduct problems, hyperactivity, peer interaction, and prosocial behavior) among preschoolers were assessed by the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). The binary logistic regression model was used to examine the association between social jetlag and emotional/behavioral problems in preschool children. The social jetlag was 0.60 hours in boys and 0.64 hours in girls. After adjusting for confounding factors as children’ s gender, age, only child, living area, family economic status, mother’s age and education, father’s education, screen time and full-day sleep time, we found that longer social jetlag (≥1 h/d) was positively associated with overall emotional and behavioral problems (OR = 1.20, 95%CI: 1.10–1.32; P < .001), emotional symptoms (OR = 1.23, 95% CI: 1.11–1.15, P < .001), hyperactivity (OR = 1.20, 95%CI: 1.11–1.30, P < .001) and conduct problems (OR = 1.18, 95%CI: 1.07–1.31, P < .01). We found that social jetlag is prevalent among Chinese preschool children and is positively associated with emotional and behavioral problems.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotional problems
• behavioral problems
• social jetlag
• circadian rhythms
• preschoolers

Acknowledgements

The authors express their gratitude to the children who participated in this study and their parents. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82173542, 82073578).

Disclosure statement

No potential competing interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [82173542, 82073578].