Study: Risk of increased health care utilization for children with sleep disorders 

DARIEN, Ill. - Among children who had a chronic medical condition, those who also had a diagnosed sleep disorder were nearly two times more likely to have increased health care utilization than those who had no sleep disorder, according to a new study. The study, "Association between sleep disorders and health care utilization in children with chronic medical conditions: A Medicaid claims data analysis.” appeared in the April 1 issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, the official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. “The results were impressive, suggesting a clear role of sleep disorders in health care utilization in children with chronic medical conditions,” said principal investigator and lead author Dr. Pranshu Adavadkar, associate professor in the department of pediatrics at the University of Illinois Chicago and director of pediatric sleep medicine at the UI Health Sleep Sciences Center. To conduct the study, researchers extracted Illinois Medicaid claims data for 16,325 children up to 18 years of age. Each child had at least one chronic medical condition such as asthma, obesity, diabetes, or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and 77% had multiple chronic medical conditions. Children were divided into three levels of health care utilization based on their hospitalizations and emergency department visits in the 12 months prior to study enrollment: low (no hospitalization or ED visit), medium (one to two hospitalizations or one to three ED visits), and high (three or more hospitalizations or four or more ED visits). Adavadkar noted that children with chronic medical conditions tend not only to have disproportionately higher health care utilization but also to have higher costs, with families with lower socioeconomic status bearing the brunt of these costs, highlighting the need to treat comorbid sleep disorders. “Understanding the specific sleep disorders that significantly increase health care utilization risk can inform targeted interventions and screenings for better management of these high-risk children,” he said. Researchers also noted that sleep disorders tend to be underdiagnosed in pediatric populations, so the association between sleep disorders and health care utilization may be even stronger than the results of this study demonstrate.