Ch Rasul, Kg Mostafa, Nn Baruri, Mm Rahman.
Prevalence and Impact of Sleep Disturbances in School Children in A Divisional City of Bangladesh.
Pak Paed J Jan ;38(3):165-72.

Background: Sleep disorder is common in children and adolescents and has important negative impact in their quality of life. Objective: This study was done to estimate the prevalence of sleep disturbance in school children and to evaluate its impact on school performances. Materials and Methods: One thousand school children between 5 to 16 years from two largest schools (one boy’s and another girl’s) were randomly selected for this study between July to December 2011. Two steps procedure were self administered questionnaire and direct interview of the affected children and parents. The questionnaires were based on diagnostic criteria for category based classification by American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Academic performance was evaluated on the basis of cumulative results of term examinations throughout the year. Results: A total of 713 (71.3%) questionnaire eventually returned of which 353 were boys and 360 were girls. Three hundred and ninety two sleep problems were noticed in 202 (28.3%) school children and mean (SD) age of sufferer was 139 (32) months. Among the primary disorders, parasomnia (47.8%) was highest followed by dyssomnia (9.5%). Prominent disorders under parasomnia were night mares (7.4%), nocturnal enuresis (4.1%) and sleep terror (3.4%) and that under dyssomnia was obstructive sleep apnea (3.6%). School performance was significantly poor in the disturbed children (p<0.001). Parasomnias were much higher in girls than boys (p<0.001). Only 20 (10.8%) parents consulted a physician for primary disorder. Conclusion: In Bangladesh a quarter of school children suffer from sleep disturbance and it has negative impact on school performance.

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