Sleep-wake habits in Spanish primary school children.

Introduction: Sleep deficit in children has been associated with psychological and behavioral health alterations as well as an increased incidence of obesity and accidents. Several studies have assessed the effects of poor sleep patterns on adolescents and young adults; however few studies have been conducted in children and pre-teenagers. The main objective of this study was to examine sleep habits in primary school children.

Methods: The parents of primary school children in Alcoy (Spain) kept a sleep diary for their children for 1 week. Parents were asked to record the time their children went to bed, woke up and got out of bed, as well as sleep latency and total sleep time on school days and weekends. The data were analyzed and differences according to grade and gender were noted.

Results: Three hundred twenty-one sleep diaries were studied; 53% were from boys and 47% from girls. As grade increased, children went to bed later and slept less (p<0.001). Children slept more hours on weekend than during the week. There was a substantial gender difference at the highest grade level: girls slept 23min more than boys on weekends (p<0.001). Sleep latency was greater than 20min in 19% of children, primarily in girls 10-12 years of age. There were a considerable percentage of children in each group who slept less than average for their age.

Conclusion: Sleep patterns in primary school children have been underreported. There appears to be insufficient sleep and delayed sleep-phase patterns among pre-teenagers.