Although pediatric insomnia has been identified as a relatively common problem, further research by studies with more complete designs were needed, according to results from a scoping review in Sleep Medicine Reviews.

Publication databases were searched from January 1970 through October 2019 for papers about pediatric insomnia. A total of 120 studies were included in this review. The studies were of typically developing children (n=80), young children (n=47), school-age children (n=9), and adolescents (n=10). The total sample size was 9587 children, most (66.7%) were participating in randomized clinical trials.

The participants were 54.1% boys, aged average 6.4 years, and 80.9% were White.

The most commonly tested intervention was bedtime/positive routines (51.7%), followed by parental education (36.7%), sleep hygiene (34.2%), graduated extinction (30.8%), positive reinforcement (28.3%), standard extinction (24.2%), and cognitive strategies (16.7%).

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