ORIGINAL ARTICLE Prevalence of Sleep Disorders Among Primary School Children Ravi Gupta 1 & Deepak Goel 2 & S. D. Kandpal 3 & Nidhi Mittal 1 & Mohan Dhyani 1 & Manish Mittal 3 Received: 28 October 2015 /Accepted: 27 April 2016 # Dr. K C Chaudhuri Foundation 2016 Abstract Objective To screen symptoms of sleep disorders among pri- mary school children. Methods Four schools from urban area and four rural schools were included in this study. Symptoms of sleep disorders were assessed using the validated Hindi version of Childhood Sleep Habit Questionnaire in 8–13 y old children. Comparison was made between urban and rural group and between boys and girls. Descriptive statistics was calculated. Results Mean age of the subjects included in this study was 8.9 ± 1.5 y. Boys and girls were equally distributed, however, rural sample was smaller. More than one awakening each night was found in 12.2 % children. In the whole group, prevalence of bed-wetting was 8.7 %, sleep-talking 20.9 %, sleep-walking 3.2 %, teeth grinding 15.4 % and night terrors 8.4 %. Daytime sleepiness was reported by 25.5 % and napping by 56.4 %. 17.3 % used to fall asleep in unusual circumstances and the teacher or the friend in 6.9 % students noticed it. Snoring was reported by 11.4 % children, and 6.3 % reportedly struggled to breathe during sleep. Domicile and gender did not affect prev- alence of parasomnia, however, symptoms of sleep apnea were more frequent among rural children. Daytime sleepiness was more common among rural children as compared to urban. Conclusions Symptoms of sleep disorders are prevalent among primary school children. Common disorders are parasomnia, sleep apnea and daytime sleepiness. Keywords School-children . Sleep-apnea . Nocturnal-enuresis . Daytime-sleepiness Introduction Sleep disorders are not uncommon among children and may range from sleep disturbances, insomnia, and parasomnia to sleep disordered breathing [1–6]. These studies have included children from varying age groups and have included the sample from various places e.g., hospital, community, children center and schools [1–6]. These studies have reported that sleep apnea, difficulty with sleep initiation or maintenance, parasomnia and excessive daytime sleepiness were common among children with varying prevalence for each disorder. Sleep disordered breathing has been reported in 0.8 %–5 % across studies [2, 7, 8]. Similarly, sleep-talking was reported in 5.5 %-14.6 %, teeth grinding in 9.5 %–11.6 % and sleep walking in 0.9 % [6, 7]. Nocturnal enuresis was also reported in a sizable number of children ranging from the 6 % to 18.4 % [2, 6]. The variation in the prevalence has been attributed to difference in method- ologies and the age group of the children. Recognition of sleep disorders is important among children as they adversely affect the academic performance, cardiovas- cular health and cognitive functions [9]. In addition, sleep disorders among children have been found to be associated with metabolic complications, obesity and psychiatric disor- ders e.g., self-harm and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder [9, 10]. Despite a high prevalence and its ill-effects on the health of the child, Indian data is limited. A few studies are available * Ravi Gupta sleepdoc.ravi@gmail.com 1 Department of Psychiatry and Sleep Clinic, Himalayan Institute of Medical Sciences, Swami Ram Nagar, Jolly Grant, Dehradun 248140, India 2 Department of Community Medicine, Himalayan Institute of Medical Sciences, Swami Ram Nagar, Jolly Grant, Dehradun, India 3 Department of Neurology, Himalayan Institute of Medical Sciences, Swami Ram Nagar, Jolly Grant, Dehradun, India Indian J Pediatr DOI 10.1007/s12098-016-2138-7