Sleep disturbances in Portuguese asthmatic children-preliminary results

• Published in: Sleep medicine Vol. 14; pp. e186 - e187
• Main Authors: Loureiro, H, Sokolova, A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.12.2013
• Subjects: Neurology; Sleep Medicine
• ISSN: 1389-9457; 1878-5506
• DOI: 10.1016/j.sleep.2013.11.441

Introduction Asthma is the most common chronic lower respiratory disease in childhood throughout the world. Nighttime respiratory symptoms constitute one of the criteria of disease control, but other sleep disturbances exist in patients with asthma. The aim of this study was to screen for sleep disturbances in children with asthma. Materials and methods Outpatients with asthma were evaluated with two sleep screening questionnaires. Parents of children aged between 4 and 10 years with asthma were asked to answer Children Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ-PT). Their children aged between 7 and 10 years answered Sleep Self Report (SSR-PT). Asthma control was assessed according to ICON Guidelines. We compared the obtained results with a group of 574 healthy children studied previously for the validation of both questionnaires for the Portuguese population (control group). The total score of both questionnaires and the 8 subscales of CSHQ-PT, bed time resistance (BTR), sleep onset delay (SOD), sleep duration (SD), sleep anxiety (SA), night wakenings (NW), parasomnias (PS), sleep disorder breathing (SDB), day time sleepiness (DTS) were analyzed. Results We obtained data from 23 children (mean age 7.7 years ± 1.7), 52.2% male. Considering ICON Guidelines, only in 5 (21.7%), asthma was totally controlled. Sleep habits evaluation showed mean sleep duration of 9.6 h/day ± 1.4, median of 10 h (6.30–12.30 h) with a difference of sleeping time between week and week-end of 1 h ± 0.76. The CSHQ-PT mean total score in this sample was 54.7 ± 10.9 and in the control group was 43.8 ± 6.1. Comparing both groups using Mann Whitney U test, the total score showed a z score of −3.91 ( p .000). Regarding the subscales, z score was statistically significant in SDB, PS, SD, SOD and ranged from −5.36 (p.000) in SDB to −3.55 ( p .000) in SOD. SSR-PT had a mean score of 36.4 ± 6.1 in the asthma group and of 34.9 ± 5.7 in the control group. Conclusion These are the preliminary results of the evaluation of sleep disturbances in a sample of asthmatic children with sleep screening questionnaires validated for Portuguese population. The obtained results alert for the need of performing the screening of sleep disturbances in asthmatic children, since besides SDB these children have other sleep disturbances presumably related with sleep deprivation and anxiety, namely altered sleep duration, sleep onset delay and the existence of parasomnias. Acknowledgement Pediatric Department of HFF.