Children sleeping fewer hours during nighttime are likely to develop psychotic disorder in adulthood, a study finds

A new study has revealed that children who persistently sleep fewer hours throughout nighttime duration period are more than twice as likely to develop a psychotic disorder in early adulthood, and nearly four times as likely to have a psychotic episode, according to University of Birmingham.

The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Birmingham who have examined information on nighttime sleep duration for children aged between 6 months and 7 years old.

As per Birmingham University, the results, published in JAMA Psychiatry, were based on data taken from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), which includes records of 12,394 children from 6 months to 7 years, and 3,889 at 24 years old.

The researchers looked at overall immune system health in the children to see whether impairments in the immune system could also account for some of the associations between lack of sleep and psychosis.

This was tested at nine-years-old by measuring levels of inflammation in blood samples. Results showed that a weakened immune system could partially explain the links between lack of sleep and psychosis, but other unknown factors are also likely to be important.