Epidemiology of restless legs syndrome in the Iranian population

As one of the most common neurological disorders, restless legs syndrome (RLS) is generally underdiagnosed and undertreated. Considering the lack of knowledge regarding the world-wide epidemiology of this common neurological disorder, we carried out a study to estimate the distribution of RLS in Isfahan, a city in the center of Iran. During the one-month period from 8 August 2007 to 8 September 2007, patients older than 18 years referred to eight neurology clinics were asked to fill out two questionnaires. The first questionnaire was derived from the diagnostic criteria for RLS outlined by the International RLS Study Group (IRLSSG). The second covered sociodemographic conditions and some other parameters concerning the clinical characteristics of RLS. Of the 2099 responding patients, 168 (8.00%) fulfilled all four IRLSSG diagnostic criteria for RLS. Their mean age was 43.4 ± 16.63 SD and the prevalence in women (69.64%) was higher than in men (30.36%), with a female-to-male ratio of 1.75. We estimated the RLS prevalence to be 8% in the population of patients referred to the neurology clinics. Moreover, the sex-specific prevalence was 9.06% in females and 5.75% in males, results identical to previous observations in western countries.