Wa0036.
Wa0036.
Wa0036.
Purpose: To investigate the frequency of childhood sleep problems at pediatric clinics in Seoul and Corresponding author: Young Min Ahn, MD
Gyeonggi provinces. Department of Pediatrics, Eulji General Hospital, 68,
Hangelbiseok-gil, Nowon-gu, Seoul 01830, Korea
Methods: Children (n=936) and their parents who visited 5 primary and 1 secondary pediatric Tel: +82-2-970-8221
outpatient clinics were invited to complete a Pediatric Sleep Questionnaire. Fax: +82-2-976-5441
Results: Among patients, 901 (96.3%) answered questionnaires in sufficient detail for evaluation. The E-mail: aym3216@eulji.ac.kr
participant’s mean age was 4.35±3.02 years (range, 0–18 years). The male to female ratio was 1:0.93
Received: 3 August, 2016
(466 boys, 435 girls). Habitual snoring (>3 day/week) was reported in 16.9% of the participants. The Revised: 30 December, 2016
prevalence of habitual snoring in children <2 years and those between 2–5 years was 9% and 18%, Accepted: 2 January, 2017
respectively. Sleep disordered breathing was found in 15.1% (106 of 700) of children >2 years. Insomnia
was reported in 13.2% of children. The prevalence of sleepwalking, night terrors, and bruxism, is 1.6%,
19%, and 21.1%, respectively. Snoring was associated with increased incidence of sleepwalking, night
terrors, and bruxism. Age was associated with insomnia and habitual snoring (P<0.05). Insomnia
was more prevalent in younger (21%) than in older children (6%). Snoring was more frequent in both
preschool (34%) and school-aged children (33%). The frequency of sleep disordered breathing and
insomnia did not vary significantly with gender. However, snoring was more prevalent in boys.
Conclusion: Sleep problems are frequent among children in Korea. Children with snoring have an
increased risk of sleepwalking, night terror, and bruxism. Primary clinicians should consider children’s
sleep habits to improve their health.
Introduction
Although the biological function of sleep is still largely unknown, sleep is seen as an
important part of the healing process and is considered essential to life in the physical,
neurological, and emotional areas. There are short- and long-term effects on life in sleep
deprivation. The short-term effects include poor attention and concentration, reduced
quality of life, low productivity and an increased absence in class or work, while long-term
effects include higher morbidity and mortality due to car accidents, coronary artery disease,
heart failure, hypertension, obesity, type-2 diabetes, stroke, depression, memory loss, and
decreased immune function1).
Copyright © 2017 by The Korean Pediatric Society
Sleep problems in children and adolescents cause serious conditions, medically and
psychologically2). Severe sleep breathing disorders may lead to left ventricular hypertrophy, This is an open-access article distributed under the
terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-
arrhythmia, cardiac pulmonary syndrome, heart failure, growth failure, and death3-5). Sleep Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/
apnea and other sleep disorders can lead to depression, attention deficit and hyperactivity licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-
commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any
disorder, cognitive disorders, learning disabilities, and emotional instability6-8). medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
158 https://doi.org/10.3345/kjp.2017.60.5.158
Korean J Pediatr 2017;60(5):158-165
https://doi.org/10.3345/kjp.2017.60.5.158 159
Kim DS, et al. • Sleep problems in children and adolescents at pediatric clinics
children and guardians who used secondary hospital. There were Table 2. Prevalence of sleep disorders by Korean version of Pediatric
younger subjects in the primary hospitals; however, there were no Sleep Questionnaire survey
sex differences (Table 1). Diagnosis No. (%) Total
Snoring 285 (31.6) 901
2. Prevalence Habitual snoring 152 (16.9) 901
Among study subjects, the rate of SDB and insomnia was 15.1 Sleep disordered breathing 106 (15.1) 700 (≥2 yr)
% (106 patients) and 13.2% (119 patients), respectively (Table 2). Enuresis 55 (18.0) 297 (≥5 yr)
The rate of snoring, habitual snoring (snoring more than 3 days Sleepwalking 14 (1.6) 901
a week), sleepwalking, night terrors, bruxism, and enuresis among Night terror 171 (19.0) 901
children was 31.6% (285 patients), 16.9% (152 patients), 1.6% (14 Bruxism 190 (21.1) 901
patients), 19% (171 patients), 21.1% (190 patients), and 18% (55 Insomnia 119 (1.23) 901
patients), respectively.
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Korean J Pediatr 2017;60(5):158-165
of 621 patients) (P=0.00). insomnia than did those without SDB (P=0.00) (Table 7).
https://doi.org/10.3345/kjp.2017.60.5.158 161
Kim DS, et al. • Sleep problems in children and adolescents at pediatric clinics
Beckwith Wiedeman syndrome), and neuromuscular diseases20,21). snoring between the sexes. However, this study showed a signi
There are a few major differences in SDB between children and ficantly higher incidence of snoring in boys. This was also the
adults. In children, the symptoms are more diverse and difficult to case in the two other studies10,11) that were conducted in Korea.
diagnose individually. In addition, excessive daytime sleepiness is More research should be conducted to see if it this is due to
common in adults while it is only seen in approximately 7% of unique characteristics of children in Korea.
children22). Conversely, hyperactivity is commonly seen among Snoring children showed a significantly higher incidence of
children. Lastly, symptoms of SDB vary in children depending on SDB, night terrors, and bruxism (Table 6). Logistic regression
their age. In young cases, snoring, apnea, frequent arousal, sweat analysis showed the risk of SDB to be 4 times higher in children
ing, dry mouth, and stunted growth are frequently seen. In con with habitual snoring (Table 7). Snoring is one aspect of SDB and
trast, cases in older patients frequently included symptoms of the correlations between SDB and night terrors or bruxism has
night terrors, sleep-talking, sleep-walking, enuresis, hyperactivity, been demonstrated in previous studies28,29). Parasomnia is regarded
and depression23). SDB can be diagnosed on the basis of patient as a symptom of SDB in children, which is supported by the
history, physical examination, and polysomnography24). observation that treating SDB also relieves parasomnia and by its
In this study, the prevalence of snoring was 31.6%, of which higher incidence in children who have a family history of SDB29).
habitual snoring (more than 3 days per week) was 16.9%. Pre Therefore, in children with night terror or bruxism, it is recom
school children (39%) and school age children (34%) showed a mended to primarily determine whether SDB is present and to
higher rate of snoring than did the other age groups. A previous treat it first.
study done in Korea by Cho et al.11) indicated that 15.5% of In general, the prevalence of enuresis is higher in cases of
children snore at least once a week and 4.3% of children snore snoring. The relationship between enuresis and snoring is
almost every day. In another study which investigated elementary believed to be due to an increase in plasma brain natriuretic pep
school children10), 26.7% children were observed to snore and tide and a decrease in antidiuretic hormone concentration during
7.1% of children snored more than 3 days a week. These 2 sleep in SDB, thereby causing increased urine production, which
studies10,11), which showed lower resulting numbers than does the is then aggravated by increased abdominal pressure due to the
current study, differed from this study in the recruitment of strong respiratory effort exerted by patients with SDB. Together,
research subjects. The 2 studies gathered research subjects from these events lead to urination.
elementary schools, whereas this study recruited outpatients. The However, in this study of the frequency of enuresis in ages
diseases that the outpatients may have had at the time (e.g., upper greater than 5, there was no significant difference in its incidence
respiratory infection, sinusitis, rhinitis, tonsillitis, etc.) could have across the 23% (14 of 60) of patients with habitual snoring, the
had an influence on snoring, thereby increasing the frequencies 15% (8 of 52) of patients with occasional snoring, and the 17%
shown in the study. In addition, since the subjects were children (33 of 191) of patients who do not snore. Even when compared to
who visited hospitals, results might have shown higher snoring habitual snoring and otherwise, the prevalence of enuresis show
rates than an average child of similar age. ed no significant difference. The different results from existing
Particularly notable in this study was the frequency of habitual studies is thought to be due to the simplistic classification of
snoring in children younger than 24 months (9%) and in children patients by their "yes" answer to the Korean version of question
between ages 2–5 (18%). Furthermore, this study is the first in our "Does your child wet the bed?" This level of detail is not sufficient
country to document the frequency of snoring in young children. to indicate enuresis, which requires that patients wet the bed at
Recently, it was shown that 60% of facial bones develop in child least twice a week for at least 3 months in children ages 5 or more
ren during the first 4 years of life25). Animal studies have shown and many parents misunderstood the questionnaire.
changes in facial structure after induced nasal congestion26), and The risk factors of habitual snoring are similar to those of SDB.
persistency of SDB with long-term follow-up27) suggest that per In a study targeting elementary school children in China30), risk
sistent oral breathing caused by factors such as nasal congestion factors, such as low family income, lack of higher education in
may structurally cause chronic development of SDB. This in turn the father, breastfeeding for less than 6 months, smoking during
highlights the necessity for early treatment during infancy and pregnancy, obesity, overweight, respiratory problems (rhinitis,
early childhood. Early detection and treatment of snoring and asthma, adenoids hypertrophy, chronic otitis media), and a family
oral breathing may prevent the development of sleep apnea. history of habitual snoring were investigated. In this study,
However, the nature of this period has not yet been explored in however, such risks were not examined.
our country. It can be said that the high incidence of 9%–18% The prevalence of night terrors was 19% and showed a signifi
shown in this study expresses the need for a more active diag cant difference by age. Night terrors occurred in 27% of infants
nosis and treatment by pediatricians. aged 0–1 years old and in 19% of preschool children. In a study
Research outside of Korea has demonstrated no difference in of twins, similar results to this study were obtained. A higher
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Korean J Pediatr 2017;60(5):158-165
incidence of night terrors was observed in younger children, with outpatients, and not by members of the public, the prevalence
a prevalence of 36.9% in children 18 months old and 19.7% in shown in the results may be higher than that of the community.
children 30 months old31). However, night terrors usually occur in Further research related to sleep problems using a representative
ages 2–4 years and are known to appear in 6% of children, re sample group would be necessary.
gardless of sex. The reason this study resulted in a high preval Moreover, because the participants conducted the survey after
ence of night terrors is because all patients that answered "yes" to having visited the hospital because of an illness, there is a possi
the question asking "awake in a panic or frightened" were classi bility that the disease was affecting sleep and thus the answer was
fied as having night terrors, even though this question includes affected. Additionally, while socio-economic status which we did
children who have either awaken while crying and those ex not asked in this study may have affected the sleep in children.
periencing nightmares. This is a limitation of the survey since the Finally, the age of the subject may affect survey responses. Young
patients may not have fully understood the meaning of night children are mostly observed by the parents while sleeping,
terrors. whereas older children who sleep alone may have had difficulties
Although there are many sleep-related problems in children recognizing their sleep problems, which may have affected their
and adolescents, parents and medical staff do not provide suffi answers to the survey.
cient attention to this problem. Despite these limitations, this study is meaningful given the
Meltzer et al.9) reported that the prevalence of sleep problems prevalence of SDB, insomnia, and snoring among Korean child
according to the ICD-9 (International Classification of Diseases, ren and adolescents. Pediatric clinics of primary medical care
9th revision) is 3.7%, which was lower than the results of previ centers report a relatively high prevalence of these conditions.
ous studies. Low prevalence is thought to be a result of the study Furthermore, our results show a higher incidence of snoring in
having been conducted retrospectively based on medical records. infants with a higher frequency in boys. These snoring children
Given the lack of interest in sleep problems, most issues relevant had a four times higher risk of SDB.
to our study were not recorded.
The lack of interest in addressing sleep problems has been
studied in previous research32) that indicated that while 24.6% of Conflict of interest
patients suffer from sleep problems, only 4.1% of parents discuss
ed the problems and only 7.9% of parents consulted a doctor. No potential conflicts of interest relevant to this article was
Other causes of sleep problems that were not covered in this reported.
study, include family suffering from illness or accidents, sleeping
with a parent, the absence of the mother during the day, depres
sion of the mother, and maternal ambivalence toward their child Acknowledgments
ren. Nevertheless, a previous study had shown that sex, age, birth
order, family size, breastfeeding, parental education, occupation, This research received support from Dr. Hyeung Chae Kang of
paternal presence15). LeeKang Pediatric Clinic, Dr. Ki Tae Kim of Seoul Pediatric Clinic,
Furthermore, children waking up in a panic were shown to Dr. Seung Nam Park of Park Seung Nam Pediatric Clinic, and Dr.
have more stress in the family and the mothers exhibited more Ki Dong Hwang of Hanmaeum Teunteun Pediatric Clinic.
psychiatric disorders33).
In another study, the prevalence of sleep problems was higher
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<Appendix >
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