Doctorate Student Eastern Michigan University Howell, Michigan, United States
Objective Postpartum anxiety impacts 3-40% of caregivers (Glasheen et al., 2009) and caregivers report sleeping about 20% less compared to other periods (Deepika et al., 2007). Since sleep problems exacerbate anxiety symptoms, targeting sleep problems in postpartum may reduce caregiver psychopathology. We hypothesized anxiety would decline from 6- to 12-months and that better sleep would predict lower levels of anxiety especially for caregivers of preterm infants.
Method Caregivers provided data with PediaTracTM (Lajiness-O’Neill et al., 2021), an online tool, at 6-, 9-, and 12-months from a larger longitudinal study of term (n=299) and preterm (n=218) infants recruited from three academic hospitals. Caregivers were sociodemograhpically diverse (Black/African American=33%, White=56%, multiracial=6%, other=4%; census-based area deprivation ADI M=5.14, SD=3.32) with 2 children (SD=1.21) in the home. Caregivers self-reported anxiety (Brief Symptom Inventory; Derogatis, 1977) and sleep quality (average of 4 PediaTracTM items: difficulty falling asleep, night awakenings, sleep quality satisfaction, morning fatigue) with higher scores indicating better sleep quality.
Results A multilevel model, accounting for nested observations, (R^2 = .06) was significant with sleep quality predicting anxiety, beta= -.22, p<.001, 95% CI [-.28, -.17]. Neither time, term status, demographic covariates nor moderation of sleep by term status were significant predictors.
Conclusion Though anxiety did not decline over postpartum, those with better sleep reported lower anxiety symptoms suggesting sleep interventions may reduce anxiety symptoms. Surprisingly, neither psychosocial stressors nor term status predicted anxiety severity. Other factors, e.g., parenting stress, should be considered in understanding differences in postpartum anxiety.
