Prevalence of Sleep Disorders in Primary School Children and its Relationship with Obesity

Introduction: Obesity is an increasingly common health problem not only in adults but also in children all over the world. Obesity rates in Turkey vary between 4.5% and 15.9% according to regions. Regular and adequate sleep is important for maintaining a healthy life as well as for physical, cognitive and emotional development. The aim of the study is to determine the level of sleep problems in primary school children, their causes and their relationship with obesity. Materials and Methods: The study is descriptive. The sleep disorder scale in children, which was developed by Bruni to evaluate the sleep disorder of the children and whose Turkish validity was verified by Akcay, was answered by the parents of children of primary school age with questions containing the socio-demographic information of the participants. The data were evaluated in the SiSS program, p <0.05 was considered significant. Results: 519 students between the ages of 6 and 14 participated in the study. 12.5% of the students (65 people) were found to be obese. The rate of students with sleep disorders was found to be 59.0% (306 people). While the rate of sleep disorders was higher in children with poor economic status, sharing the same bed with their parents, having chronic illness, having mobile phone, and low education level of their father, no significant relationship was found between obesity and sleep disorders. Conclusion: The rate of children with sleep disorders is quite high. Since child development and cognitive functions of the child are taken into consideration, it is important to eliminate sleep disorder and the factors that cause it. Although our study could not show a relationship between sleep disorder and obesity, policy makers' attention should be drawn to the issue by revealing the relationship between obesity and sleep disorder more clearly with larger-scale studies to be conducted at the national level.