Prevalence of parasomnia in school aged children in Tehran

Objectives: parasomnias can create sleep disruption; in this article we assessed parasomnias in school-aged children in tehran. methods: in spring 2005,a total of 6000 sleep questionnaires were distributed to school-aged children in 5 districts of tehran (iran). a modified pediatrics sleep questionnaire with 34 questions was used. results: parasomnias varied from 0.5% to 5.7% among the subjects as follows: 2.7% sleep talking,0.5% sleepwalking,5.7% bruxism,2.3% enuresis,and nightmare 4%. a group of children showed parasomnias occasionally- this was 13.1% for sleep talking,1.4% for sleepwalking,10.6% for bruxism,3.1% for enuresis and 18.4% for nightmares. conclusion: a high proportion of children starting school suffer from sleep problems. in many cases this is a temporary,developmentally related phenomenon,but in 6% of the children the disorder is more serious and may be connected with various stress factors and further behavioral disturbances.