Kids who don’t get enough sleep aren’t only at risk of snoozing in class – they’re also more likely to be injured, results of a recent study show.
Researchers surveyed 230,000 Canadian and European 11-, 13- and 15-year-olds. They asked the kids about their sleep behaviors, as well as how often they experienced an injury requiring medical treatment in the past year and if they’d sustained an injury that required a cast, stitches or surgery.
Among the findings: The kids who reported insufficient sleep were injured more often than those who slept well. The worse the quality and quantity of sleep, the more susceptible they were to injuries. Additionally, sleep-deprived girls had a higher risk for injuries than boys.
On school days, 48% of the kids reported poor sleep. That percentage dropped to 13 on non-school days.
“If adolescents are not getting enough sleep or they’re having sleep difficulties, that can impair their cognitive functioning, especially in the areas of social information processing, attention and decision-making,” said lead study author Valerie Pagnotta, a doctoral student at Brock University. “We think these impairments may contribute to increased risk of injury among adolescents.”
The National Sleep Foundation recommends kids ages 6-13 get nine to 11 hours of sleep per night. For 15-year-olds, the recommendation is eight to 10 hours.
The study was published in the journal European Journal of Public Health.
