Tense and depressed
Q: Did you see that sleep disruptions will give kids depression and anxiety in later life?
A: The story in the Herald? From the Daily Mail? Yes
Q: And that this costs the US $120 billion per year? Is that what they really found?
A: No. The $120 billion is for all forms of anxiety and depression. They’re not really claiming it’s all — or even mostly — due to kids sleeping badly. They just want you to see the number.
Q: What did they really find?
A: They say kids who got less sleep for two nights found less enjoyment in positive things.
Q: Makes sense. You certainly get grumpy after even one night’s disrupted sleep.
A: Pot, kettle.
Q: But that’s just short-term. What happened when the kids grew up?
A: They didn’t. They’re still kids.
Q: How long have they followed them up?
A: The press release describes the experiment as still ongoing: “they are temporarily restricting sleep in 50 pre-adolescent children between the ages of 7 to 11. “
Q: But the Herald has that in the past tense.
A: Yes. Yes it does.
Q: How long has the research been going on?
A: The grant was funded about two years ago.
Q: Ok, so why does the story talk about “depression and anxiety as adults”?
A: The researchers believe there would be long-term effects in adults.
Q: But this experiment isn’t about that?
A: No.
Q: That’s a relief, actually. If the experiment really was going to make the kids depressed as adults it wouldn’t seem ethical.
A: No, though we also could talk about the ethics of news stories that imply parents are at fault for everything.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »