Abstract
Background and Objectives:Sleep abnormalities are disturbances in regularity, quality and quantity of sleep which lead to dysfunction in everyday life. Insomnia, hypersomnia, disturbance in sleep – wake schedule, nightmares, night terrors, and sleep walking are among common sleep disorders. Although sleep has a significant role in mental and physical well being of human kind, and numerous studies have been carried out about it’s nature. Sleep disorders have not been fully studied. This study was aimed to investigate the prevalence of sleep disorders in mentally ill patients and to compare it with the same disorders in general population. Meanwhile long-term use of sedative and hypnotic drugs were studied in males and females in both groups.
Materials and Methods: Our research was a descriptive, cross-sectional, comparative and retrospective study. One thousand and thirteen patients were studied. The age range was between 15 and 75 years. Four hundred and eighty two out of the subjects were randomly selected from general population of Tabriz and 531 psychiatric patients were selected by consecutive sampling from clients referred to two psychiatric clinics of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. We used Sleep History Questionnaire (Kaplan & Sadock) to study sleep disorders in both groups. The data were analyzed with statistical methods of frequency, percent and chi-square (2).
Results: General prevalence of sleep disorders in this study in general population was 35.22%. Daytime sleepiness and difficulty in falling sleep were 64% and 41.3% respectively and the highest among all sleep disorders in general population. Nightmares (16.9%), somniloguy (sleep talking) (26.4%), sleep paralysis (16.5%), sleep terror (9.6%) and sleep walking (7.1%) were among the frequent sleep disurbances we noted in our study. Psychiatric patients compared with general population used more hypnotic agents. The prevalence of sleep disorders in psychiatric patients significantly (p<0.01) was higher than general population. Daytime sleepiness was significantly more frequent in women (p<0.01). Complaints about sleep difficulties were increased with age in both gender (p<0.01).
Conclusion: Overall finding in this study is that the sleep disorders are quite frequent in general population and psychiatric patients require careful evaluation and management.
MJTUMS, NO. 64, 28-33, 2005