Abstract
Sleep problems are a common complaint in chronically stressed populations. Older adults raising grandchildren may be particularly vulnerable to sleep problems, as raising grandchildren is frequently characterized as a stressful experience. The current study evaluated the effects of raising grandchildren on sleep problems in a population-based sample of community-dwelling older adults. Further, we evaluated whether baseline health status moderated the association between raising grandchildren and poor sleep. Our study utilized secondary data from the Health and Retirement Study, a longitudinal, population-based study of adults aged >50. Grandparents were asked about their caregiving status and about the prevalence of 5 chronic health conditions (lung disease, heart disease, cancer, arthritis, and diabetes) at baseline. Sleep problems were evaluated at baseline and 4-year follow-up using a four-item self-report measure. We evaluated associations between raising grandchildren and sleep problems at 4-year follow-up, controlling for age, marital status, race/ethnicity, education, sex, and baseline sleep. There was no main effect of raising grandchildren on sleep problems; however, the number of chronic health conditions interacted with raising grandchildren in predicting sleep problems. There was no association between raising grandchildren and poor sleep among those with 0–1 chronic health conditions; however among those with 2 or more chronic health conditions, grandparents raising grandchildren were nearly twice as likely to report poor sleep as their counterparts (OR: 1.83; 95% CI: 1.24–2.72). Our findings demonstrate that attention to chronic health conditions is important for individuals raising grandchildren, as it has implications for sleep outcomes in this often chronically stressed population.