Co-sleeping with Pets, Stress, and Sleep in a Nationally-representative Sample of United States Adults

Overview

Journal Sci Rep

Specialty Science

Date 2024 Mar 6

PMID 38448628

Authors

Brian N Chin

Tvisha Singh

Aisha S Carothers

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

This cross-sectional study tested the direct and stress-buffering effects of co-sleeping with pets on human sleep characteristics in a nationally-representative sample of United States adults. Participants completed questionnaires assessing their sleep characteristics, including perceived sleep quality, perceived sleep efficiency, insomnia severity, and multidimensional sleep health. We evaluated whether co-sleeping with pets was associated with sleep characteristics and whether co-sleeping with pets moderated the association of stress and sleep characteristics. Exploratory analyses examined whether sleep characteristics were impacted by number of pets, pet type, and bondedness to pets. Our final sample of 1591 participants (M = 46.4 years, SD = 17.5; 56% female; 76% White) included 758 participants who reported co-sleeping with pets (47.6%). Co-sleeping with pets was associated with poorer sleep characteristics-specifically, poorer perceived sleep quality and greater insomnia severity. Although higher levels of stress were associated with poorer sleep, we did not observe evidence for a stress-buffering effect of co-sleeping with pets. Exploratory analyses indicated that the negative impact of co-sleeping with pets on human sleep was associated with dog ownership but not cat ownership, more pronounced when individuals own a greater number of pets, and not impacted by bondedness to pets. Our findings contribute to emerging evidence for the impact of co-sleeping with pets on human sleep. Study was pre-registered at: https://aspredicted.org/3VN_WF6 .

References

Volsche S . Pet Parenting in the United States: Investigating an Evolutionary Puzzle. Evol Psychol. 2021; 19(3):14747049211038297. PMC: 10355291. DOI: 10.1177/14747049211038297. View

Chandler J, Rosenzweig C, Moss A, Robinson J, Litman L . Online panels in social science research: Expanding sampling methods beyond Mechanical Turk. Behav Res Methods. 2019; 51(5):2022-2038. PMC: 6797699. DOI: 10.3758/s13428-019-01273-7. View

Ehlers C, Frank E, Kupfer D . Social zeitgebers and biological rhythms. A unified approach to understanding the etiology of depression. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1988; 45(10):948-52. DOI: 10.1001/archpsyc.1988.01800340076012. View

Janevic M, Shute V, Connell C, Piette J, Goesling J, Fynke J . The Role of Pets in Supporting Cognitive-Behavioral Chronic Pain Self-Management: Perspectives of Older Adults. J Appl Gerontol. 2019; 39(10):1088-1096. PMC: 6920602. DOI: 10.1177/0733464819856270. View

Cohen S, Kamarck T, Mermelstein R . A global measure of perceived stress. J Health Soc Behav. 1983; 24(4):385-96. View

Smith B, Hazelton P, Thompson K, Trigg J, Etherton H, Blunden S . A Multispecies Approach to Co-Sleeping : Integrating Human-Animal Co-Sleeping Practices into Our Understanding of Human Sleep. Hum Nat. 2017; 28(3):255-273. DOI: 10.1007/s12110-017-9290-2. View

Levine G, Allen K, Braun L, Christian H, Friedmann E, Taubert K . Pet ownership and cardiovascular risk: a scientific statement from the American Heart Association. Circulation. 2013; 127(23):2353-63. DOI: 10.1161/CIR.0b013e31829201e1. View

Cohen S, Wills T . Stress, social support, and the buffering hypothesis. Psychol Bull. 1985; 98(2):310-57. View

Faul F, Erdfelder E, Lang A, Buchner A . G*Power 3: a flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behav Res Methods. 2007; 39(2):175-91. DOI: 10.3758/bf03193146. View

10.

Bastien C, Vallieres A, Morin C . Validation of the Insomnia Severity Index as an outcome measure for insomnia research. Sleep Med. 2001; 2(4):297-307. DOI: 10.1016/s1389-9457(00)00065-4. View

11.

Rosano J, Howell T, Conduit R, Bennett P . Co-Sleeping between Adolescents and Their Pets May Not Impact Sleep Quality. Clocks Sleep. 2021; 3(1):1-11. PMC: 7838871. DOI: 10.3390/clockssleep3010001. View

12.

Wuyts J, De Valck E, Vandekerckhove M, Pattyn N, Bulckaert A, Berckmans D . The influence of pre-sleep cognitive arousal on sleep onset processes. Int J Psychophysiol. 2011; 83(1):8-15. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2011.09.016. View

13.

Nugent W, Daugherty L . A Measurement Equivalence Study of the Family Bondedness Scale: Measurement Equivalence Between Cat and Dog Owners. Front Vet Sci. 2022; 8:812922. PMC: 8787268. DOI: 10.3389/fvets.2021.812922. View

14.

Krahn L, Tovar M, Miller B . Are Pets in the Bedroom a Problem?. Mayo Clin Proc. 2015; 90(12):1663-5. DOI: 10.1016/j.mayocp.2015.08.012. View

15.

Buysse D, Reynolds 3rd C, Monk T, BERMAN S, Kupfer D . The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index: a new instrument for psychiatric practice and research. Psychiatry Res. 1989; 28(2):193-213. DOI: 10.1016/0165-1781(89)90047-4. View

16.

Dunleavy G, Bajpai R, Tonon A, Chua A, Cheung K, Soh C . Examining the Factor Structure of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index in a Multi-Ethnic Working Population in Singapore. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2019; 16(23). PMC: 6926964. DOI: 10.3390/ijerph16234590. View

17.

Buysse D . Sleep health: can we define it? Does it matter?. Sleep. 2014; 37(1):9-17. PMC: 3902880. DOI: 10.5665/sleep.3298. View

18.

Smith B . The 'pet effect'--health related aspects of companion animal ownership. Aust Fam Physician. 2012; 41(6):439-42. View

19.

Andre C, Lovallo V, Spencer R . The effects of bed sharing on sleep: From partners to pets. Sleep Health. 2021; 7(3):314-323. PMC: 8205933. DOI: 10.1016/j.sleh.2020.11.011. View

20.

Patel S, Miller B, Kosiorek H, Parish J, Lyng P, Krahn L . The Effect of Dogs on Human Sleep in the Home Sleep Environment. Mayo Clin Proc. 2017; 92(9):1368-1372. DOI: 10.1016/j.mayocp.2017.06.014. View