TY  - JOUR
AU  - Hobson, Sally
AU  - Vyas-Lee, Jenna
AU  - Turnbull, Jessica
AU  - Lahoti, Bidisha
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021/06/15
TI  - Establishing and Evaluating a Multidisciplinary Community-Based Sleep Clinic for Children with Neurodevelopmental Difficulties in Inner London
JO  - OBM Neurobiology
SP  - 101
VL  - 05
IS  - 02
AB  - We describe our experience of setting up and evaluating a community-based multi-disciplinary sleep service for children with neurodevelopmental disorders and psychosocial vulnerabilities.Referrals are accepted for children (1-18 years of age) with persistent sleep problems, and neurodevelopmental difficulties or significant psychosocial adversity, living in two inner-city boroughs.Holistic sleep assessment involves 1-hour Paediatrician-led consultation, often followed by Psychologist-led parent workshop, with follow-up telephone/face-to-face contacts to support implementation of behavioural interventions.Acceptability is measured through parent feedback; efficacy measured through Composite Sleep Disturbance Index, Sleep Problem rating, and locally developed Burden Score.Referrals for 354 children were received in the first two years.99% of families report the service met their child’s needs well/very well.Sleep studies were accessed for around a quarter of children.Medical and social complexity was common, and more prevalent in families who were less able to engage to completion of intervention (significant psychosocial vulnerability in 43.4% of suboptimally engaged, versus 22.7% of engaged group).Clinical outcome measure scores improved for a subset of families in whom data was available, who had been able to engage in the intervention.There has been a high demand for our community-based multi-disciplinary sleep service, with positive feedback from families.Intervention has resulted in positive impacts on sleep outcome measures for those engaged.There continue to be barriers to accessing intervention, and putting in place recommendations, for some families which requires further evaluation and potential service development. We believe the community-based multi-disciplinary model of this service could be readily replicated in other localities to benefit sleep health on a wider scale.
SN  - 2573-4407
UR  - https://doi.org/10.21926/obm.neurobiol.2102101
DO  - 10.21926/obm.neurobiol.2102101
ID  - Hobson2021
ER  -