Kids May Be Screened for Sleep Problems at School

According to the results of a new scientific investigation, screening children for sleep problems during their first year of school represents a very effective way of discovering these conditions in the young population. The disorders could then be treated in time, before they get any worse.

The main idea behind the study was very simple – researchers wanted to learn whether the effort to screen all school-age children is indeed worth it, in terms of health returns and benefits. Finding sleep disorders early on can save a lot of money for the healthcare system in the long run.

Past studies have demonstrated that disturbances and problems in sleep patterns only get more severe with time, eventually becoming factors that contribute to the development of a host of severe health issues. This is why experts were so intent on diagnosing the young ones early on.

Researchers behind the study say that this work represents the first instance when a large-scale, school-based screening and treatment program was proposed and investigated with scientific rigor. The team was made up of scientists from the Royal Children's Hospital, in Melbourne, Australia.

The group applied questionnaires to 1,512 parents, in which they asked the respondents whether their children had trouble sleeping, experienced disturbances, or showed any type of related conditions.

In the study group, researchers identified more than a hundred kids with moderate to severe sleep problems. Of this subgroup, they got parents' permission to divide 108 children into two study groups. The average age of participants was 5.7 years.

The first group was made up of children who received “customized” help for their respective conditions. Their parents were taught how to use behavioral sleep strategies in order to alleviate the severity of their conditions. Children in the second group were used as control subjects.

“We know that sleep problems are present in up to 40 percent of school children, and these problems are associated with poorer child behavior, social and emotional problems and [difficulty] learning,” RCH research scientist and study coauthor Jon Quach explains, quoted by My Health News Daily.

At the end of the study period, kids in the first group display significantly reduced symptoms, and fared better overall than their peers in the control group. Three months after the study was concluded, a third of kids in the study group had sleep problems, compared to 43 percent of controls.

However, by 6 months, the incidence of sleep disturbances in the study group dropped to 26 percent, whereas 47 percent of children in the control group displayed symptoms. By 12 months, the percentage were again equal, indicated that the effects of the applied therapies tapered off over time.

“We believe the faster resolution of sleep problems for [kids in the treatment group] has positive benefits for the child and their family through improving daily functioning quicker,” Quach says.