Study of sleep problems and its impact on scholastic performance in school going children
Journal Title: Medpulse International Journal of Pediatrics - Year 2018, Vol 5, Issue 3
Abstract
Background: Sleep is an integral part of any healthy individual. Although sleep disorders are common problems among families and they affect the learning, memory processes and academic performance of children, there is no evaluation of these disorders in India. Inadequate or poor sleep in children may have negative consequences on a host of functional domains, including mood, behavior, learning, and health. Therefore, it is important for pediatricians to both screen for and recognize sleep disorders in children during health encounters. A study that compared sleep in school-aged children using BEARS tool found that sleep problems and sleep patterns differed between these groups. The differences were attributed to school schedules, sleep practices and many other factors like time to go to bed, time to wake up, gap between last meal and sleep, watching TV and playing videogames before sleep also had significant contribution to sleep disorders and scholastic performance. Objectives: We studied the sleep problems among school going children in the age group of 7-12 years and the association of the sleep problems with scholastic performance in them. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of sleep disorders and its association with academic performance of school age children. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 1500 middle school students from two private schools of Kalaburagicity of Karnataka, India during 2016-17. The data gathered with a validated questionnaire to evaluate the academic performance and sleep disorders. Questionnaire based on the “BEARS” screening tool and Children’s Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ) was used for sleep problems in children to be filled by children and parents. Accordingly, the age and academic grades of students were recorded. The prevalence of sleep problems and their relation to school grades were studied. Results: The study reveals a total of 1500 sample students out of which 971(64.7%) were boys and 529(35.3%) were girls found that 208(13.9%) students were having unsatisfied sleeping patternas shown. The mean duration of sleep was (8.04 ± 0.59) which was significantly higher in the group with poor academic performance (8.86±1.18 hours), than the other two groups (8.14±1.17) hours for average academic performance and (7.90±1.15 hours) for excellent academic performance. Of these 208 children, 116 scored A grade, 18 scored B grade, and 10 scored C grade. Other variables like time to go to bed (9.64 ± 0.63),time to wake up, gap between last meal and sleep(1.39 ±1.18), watching TV before going to bed 150 (72.1% )and playing videogames 52 (25%) before sleep also had significant contribution to sleep disorders and scholastic performance. Conclusion: This study revealed that sleep disorders negatively affect the academic erformance and highlighted the importance of proper sleep among children and students. Sleep problems might be one of the contributors for poor scholastic achievements in children. We conclude that sleep problems are common in school going children, and these might be one of the reasons for poor scholastic achievements. Despite being so prevalent, many of them remain underreported and undiagnosed, possibly due to neglect and ignorance of parents as well as health care providers. The health professionals should make it as a point to screen each child for sleep problems to treat them at the earliest, so as to prevent their adverse effects in future.
Authors and Affiliations
Apurva B, Satish Reddy H
Keywords
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