Secular trends in Australian school children's sleep and perceived importance of sleep between 1985 and 2013.

AIM: To examine secular trends in Australian children's actual sleep time as well as the perceived importance of sleep between 1985, 2004 and 2013.

METHODS: Secular trends in children's sleep and their perception of the importance of sleep across three time points 1985 (N = 401), 2004 (N = 450) and 2013 (N = 395) were examined according to socio-economic status (SES), age and sex. The children self-reported their bedtime, wake-up time and their perceived importance of sleep, among other questions.

RESULTS: There were no significant differences in sleep duration between boys and girls in any of the survey years, nor were there differences in sleep duration between SES categories at any time point. Independent of survey year, age, sex and SES, there was a graded difference in sleep duration (minutes) across response categories for perceived importance of sleep. Overall, trends in the perceived importance of sleep appeared to match trends in actual sleep time, but not for all subgroups.

CONCLUSION: This study indicates that the sleep duration of high SES Australian school children is returning to, or near to, baseline sleep duration observed in 1985, while the sleep duration of low SES Australian children has remained at low levels.