The Prevalence of Sleep Disorders and their Relationship with Anxiety and Behavioral Problems among Primary School Students in Yazd, Iran

Introduction Sleep disorders can influence either directly or indirectly, on the family, colleagues and finally the community. In the realm of children, the most serious complications of sleep are anxiety and behavioral problems that make them prone to academic failure, family tensions and psychosocial – social trauma. Materials and Methods In a descriptive correlational survey, the study population consisted of all female students of second courses of primary schools in Yazd city, Central of Iran, by using Cochran formula with confidence level of 95% and probable accuracy of 5%, a sample size of 259 people was identified. Sampling group was chosen by multistage clustering method and questionnaire: assessment of children s’ sleep habits (Evans, 2000), multidimensional scale of children anxiety (March, Parker, Sullivan, Staling and Conrez, 1997) and questionnaire of children s’ behavioral problems (Rutter, 1970) were used. The method was based on the data collecting by descriptive – correlation kind. Results The results showed that 74.9 percent of students in a low value and 25.1 percent at in a moderate value had sleep disorders. There was a significant and direct relationship between sleep disturbance and anxiety (r=0/346 and p<0.001). Also there was a substantial and direct relationship between sleep disorders and behavioral problems in students(r=0.545 and p< 0/001). There was no notable difference between sleep disturbance based on educational grade (P> 0.05 and F= 0.089). Conclusion The current study showed that the 2/3 of students had low and 1/3 had moderate sleep disorders. There was a significant and direct relationship between sleep disorders and anxiety and also between sleep disorders and behavioral problems. It is recommended that parents must have a special attention to the children sleep