Sleep Quality and Disturbances in Children and Adolescents with Cancers: A Cross-Sectional Study

Childhood cancer has very unpleasant side effects on patients. A common problem among patients is sleep disturbance owing to a variety of causes. This study aimed to determine the sleep quality and disturbances in children and adolescents with cancer in Yazd, Iran.
This study was a descriptive cross-sectional on 101 patients aged 4-18 years who referred to the Shahid Sadoughi hospital in Yazd, Iran, and were treated with the diagnosis of cancer. Sleep quality was assessed via the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Data were analyzed using SPSS version 16.0 software.
The mean age of the patients was 9.54 ± 3.97 years and 59.4% were girls. The mean duration of cancer was 12.82 ± 2.66 months.The mean of PSQI was 6.49 ± 3.14 (of the total score 21). Considering a cutoff point 5, (60.9%) of patients were identified as poor sleeper. The mean of sleep duration was 7.72 ± 1.68 hours and mean of sleep latency was 35.45 ± 29.73 minutes. The mean of fatigue was increased with increasing the average of sleep quality (P =0.000).
According to the results, more than half of children with cancer had poor sleep quality. According to frequent waking ups during the night, and sleep duration reduction, it is necessary to set time nursing care during the night to prevent frequent waking during the night.