Sleep‐disordered breathing in 3,680 Greek children

Abstract

The goal of the present investigation was to describe the prevalence of and clinical factors associated with sleep-disordered breathing in children and adolescents. Children and adolescents (3,680 in all, 1-18 years old) attending schools in central Greece were surveyed by questionnaires distributed to parents. We found a similar prevalence of habitual snoring (present every night) among three different age groups (5.3%, 4%, and 3.8% in 1-6-, 7-12-, and 13-18-year-old subjects, P = NS). Several children with an adenoidectomy and/or tonsillectomy were snoring every night (6.1%), whereas sleepiness at school was more common in habitual snorers than in nonhabitual snorers (4.6 vs. 2%, P = 0.03). Seventy randomly selected subjects among 307 snorers without adenoidectomy and/or tonsillectomy underwent polysomnography. The estimated frequency of obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea among children without adenoidectomy and/or tonsillectomy was 4.3%. Factors associated with snoring were: male gender (odds ratio 1.5 (confidence interval, 1.2-1.9)); chronic rhinitis (2.1 (1.6-2.7)); snoring in father (1.5 (1.2-1.9)), mother (1.5 (1.1-2.0)), or siblings (1.7 (1.2-2.4)); adenoidectomy in mother (1.5 (1.0-2.2)); and passive smoking (1.4 (1.1-1.8)). In conclusion, snoring every night was equally prevalent in younger and older ages, more frequent in males, and present even in some children with a history of adenoidectomy and/or tonsillectomy. Chronic rhinitis, family history of snoring, and exposure to cigarette smoke were associated with an increased frequency of habitual snoring.

Nocturnal enuresis is associated with moderate-to-severe obstructive sleep apnea in children with snoring

“…Obstructive apnea was scored when chest/abdominal wall motion was detected in the absence of airflow for at least two breaths in duration (30,31). Apnea was considered of mixed type when there was both an obstructive and a central component.…”

“…Beginning in June 2009, the new American Academy of Sleep Medicine criteria for the scoring of sleep and associated events were implemented in the Larissa University Hospital Sleep Disorders Laboratory (34). For the purposes of this study and for consistent data analysis, sleep studies performed in June 2009 or more recently were re-scored according to the old rules (30)(31)(32)(33).…”

Population prevalence of obstructive sleep apnoea in a community of German third graders

“…Many studies attempting to estimate the prevalence of OSA in children have been undertaken [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. They yielded point estimates for the population prevalence of OSA ranging from 0.7% [4,8] to 31.4% [13].…”

“…However, none of these studies attempted to draw a representative sample from the population (or did not report on it) and only one [14] combined stratum-specific estimates to calculate overall population prevalence estimates. Moreover, most studies used a one-stage screening procedure with questionnaires as the only screening instrument [4,5,7,8,12,[15][16][17][18]. Some studies used nonaccepted standards for diagnosing OSA [4,12] and others used adult rather than paediatric polysomnographic criteria to diagnose OSA [6,10].…”

“…Regarding European countries, prevalence studies on paediatric OSA have been performed in the UK [4], Iceland [5], Sweden [7], Italy [9,12], Spain [10], Greece [15] and Turkey [18], but not yet in Germany. In 2000, the authors initiated a comprehensive community-based cross-sectional study on SDB in children (i.e.…”