Prevalence of Sleep Disorders among Epileptic Children Referring To Emam-Reza Clinic and Comparing With Non-Epileptic Group during 2013-2014

The prevalence of sleep disorders are 15-42 percent in world population. Sleep disorders can be the result of physical, psychological and environmental factors. The prevalence of these disorders is higher in epileptic children. The aim of this study was identifying the rapid diagnosis of sleep disorders in epileptic children in order to reduce the disease problems.

In this case-control study, 160 children in the age range of 4-16 with epilepsy and sleep disorders were evaluated. In order to data analysis SPSS version 16, chi-square test; quantitative data, Mann-Whitney non-parametric test were used. Linear regression analysis was used to determine the effect of seizure variables on the severity of sleep disorders criteria.

Our results indicated that the incidence of sleep disorders are significantly higher among epileptic children compared to non-epileptic ones (p<0.05). In addition, we observed a significant correlation among some seizure variables such as etiology (p<0.003), response (p<0.01), abnormal EEG (p<0.003), abnormal MRI and CT (p<0.003), age (p<0.003), seizure duration (p<0.002) and sex (p<0.04) with the incidence of sleep disorders.

Some of the epileptic variables, which have a significant correlation with the prevalence of sleep disorders can be considered as the possible parameters for predicting faster sleep disorders in children with epilepsy. Detection of sleep disorders in these children can reduce their problems.