Prevalence of restless legs syndrome in pregnant women in Asia: systematic review and meta-analysis

Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a neurological disorder accompanied by sleep disturbances leading to cardiovascular diseases, gestational hypertension, depression and increased rate of maternal and fetal mortality. Different prevalence rates have been reported for RLS. This systematic review and meta-analysis was performed with aim to evaluate the prevalence of RLS among pregnant women in Asia.

In this review study, the national and international databases, including SID, MagIran, Google Scholar, IranMedex, Science Direct, PubMed, and Scopus were searched and 16 observational studies with full texts published from 2003 to January 2018 were extracted. The meta-analysis was conducted using the Random effect model, and the I2 index was used to assess the heterogeneity between studies. Data were analyzed using STATA software (version 12).

Across the 16 reviewed articles with a total sample size of 49342, the prevalence of RLS among Asian pregnant women was around 18.5% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 13.75%-23.38%). The prevalence of RLS based on interview and questionnaire was 14.04% (95% CI: 12.02%-16.05%) and 22.75% (95% CI: 13.49%-32.01%), respectively. No significant relationship was found between prevalence of RLS and year of publication (p=0.939), sample size (p=0.161), and mean age of participants (p=0.105).

Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is highly prevalent among Asian pregnant women. Considering the maternal and fetal outcomes of RLS, it seems necessary to examine the precise causes of its prevalence among this high-risk population.