The effects of bed sharing on sleep: From partners to pets.
Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data
Scoping review synthesizing literature across diverse dyad categories without systematic quantitative meta-analysis
PubMed 33436343 · doi:10.1016/j.sleh.2020.11.011
What was done
The authors conducted a scoping review examining the relationship between bed sharing and sleep across four dyad categories: parent and child, adult couples, siblings, and pet owners with pets. The review evaluated whether sleep-promoting factors such as psychological comfort or sleep-demoting factors such as movement or heat generalize across these arrangements.
What was found
No quantitative data, sample sizes, or effect sizes were reported in the abstract. Across all dyad types, bed sharing was generally associated with better subjective reports of sleep quality despite generally worse objective measures of sleep.
Why it matters
This review broadens the scope of bed-sharing research beyond mother-infant pairs to common co-sleeping arrangements with partners and pets. Highlighting the discrepancy between perceived sleep quality and objective sleep architecture informs clinical approaches to sleep complaints.
Limits
The abstract omits search methodology, study counts, participant sample sizes, and all numerical outcomes. As a scoping review aggregating disparate dyad types and study designs, findings may be subject to substantial heterogeneity and unmeasured confounding.
Cited by
- context People generally experience worse sleep when sharing a bed with a partner compared to sleeping alone.
- context Data show that individuals generally do not sleep as well when sharing a bed with a partner compared to sleeping alone.