National Sleep Foundation’s sleep time duration recommendations: methodology and results summary
Introduction
The National Sleep Foundation’s (NSF’s) mission is to improve health and well-being through sleep health education and advocacy. Notably, the NSF provides the public with the most up-to-date, scientifically rigorous sleep health recommendations. Millions of individuals each year seek guidance regarding sleep duration sufficiency from the NSF website. Additionally, the recommendations are widely cited and distributed by other organizations. To this end, the NSF convened a multidisciplinary expert panel, conducted a systematic literature review, and used the RAND/UCLA Appropriateness Method (RAM)1 to formulate age-specific sleep duration recommendations.
Section snippets
Participants and methods
The NSF assembled a multidisciplinary expert panel comprised of both sleep experts and experts in other areas of medicine, physiology, and science. This approach provided varying perspectives regarding sleep duration. The 18-member expert panel included 12 representatives selected by stakeholder organizations and 6 sleep experts chosen by the NSF. Stakeholder organizations included the following: American Academy of Pediatrics, American Association of Anatomists, American College of Chest
Results
Sleep durations with median appropriateness scores ranging from 1-3 were classified as inappropriate, those in the 4-6 range were classified as uncertain, and those in the 7-9 range were classified as appropriate. Divergent opinion among panelists was defined as more than 20% (ie, 3 of 18 panel members) voting outside any 3-point range (ie, 1-3, 4-6, or 7-9) of the median. Also, all sleep durations rated "with disagreement," whatever the median, were classified as uncertain.
Each sleep duration
Discussion
The NSF conducted a systematic literature review, convened an expert panel, and used quantitative techniques to summarize expert opinion concerning recommended sleep durations. We updated the NSF’s age-related sleep duration recommendations based on these results. Importantly, the panel emphasized that some individuals might sleep longer or shorter than the recommended times with no adverse effects. However, individuals with sleep durations far outside the normal range may be engaging in
Acknowledgements
Literature review team: John Herman, PhD; David Brown, PhD; and Chelsea Vaughn, PhD.
Research assistants: Jenna Faulkner, Luca Calzoni, Ben Getchell, and Taylor Nelson.
References (2)
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