Prevalence of Restless Legs Syndrome in Iran: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

In recent years, different values of the general prevalence of restless legs syndrome have been reported in various studies and its related factors in Iranian society are not known. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence and factors associated with restless legs syndrome in Iran by meta-analysis.

  This study was performed based on PRISMA checklist. There was a time limit from 1st July 2014 to 11th November 2019 for documents obtained from English and Persian databases such as Magiran, Sid, Medilib, Iranmedex, Irandoc, Civilica, ISC, Pubmed, Scopus, Springer, and Google Scholar Engine. Data were searched and extracted independently by two researchers and finally, a group decision was made with the presence of a third observer. All reviewed articles with selection criteria were evaluated qualitatively by the STROBE checklist. Comprehensive Meta analysis (CMA-2) software was used to analyze the data by meta-analysis random effects model.

The prevalence of restless legs syndrome was estimated to be 32.9% (95% CI: 22.9- 44.7) in 24 studies with 26474 Iranian subjects that 65.9% of whom were women. The prevalence of this disorder was 47.6% in Iranian women (95% CI: 28.7-67.2%) and 36.7% in Iranian men (95% CI: 21.4-55.3%). The most and the least prevalence of restless legs syndrome based on geographical region were respectively in east (44.3%) and north of the country (15.5%) and this difference was significant based on meta-regression (p <0.05). The prevalence of this syndrome was 50% in hemodialysis patients, 35% in other diseases, 25.7% in pregnant women, 20.2% in elderly and 13.8% in adults.

The prevalence of restless legs syndrome in Iran is higher than other parts of the world based on different studies. Therefore, early detection, prevention and treatment of this disorder in adults, especially women, is essential.