Evaluation of sleep habits and their relationship with quality of life in children with epilepsy

Objective The aim of study was to investigate sleep habits, quality of life (QoL), and the relationship between them in children with epilepsy. Methods In this cross-sectional study, children aged 2-18 years being followed up for epilepsy were assessed using the Child Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ) and the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL). Pearson or Spearman correlation analysis was performed to examine the relationship between normally distributed and non-normally distributed variables, respectively. Linear regression analysis was used to examine independent variables associated with PedsQL total scale score. Level of significance was accepted as p<0.05. Results The study included 112 children with a mean age of 10.5±4.4 years (51.8% female). The frequency of poor sleep habits was 96.4%. The mean CSHQ total sleep score was 49.3±5.9. On the PedsQL, the mean total scores were 74±15.6 according to the children’s self-assessment and 75.8±14.8 according to parental evaluation. There was a good level of agreement between children’s and parents’ PedsQL total, physical health, and psychosocial health scores (p<0.001). Correlation analysis between QoL and sleep parameters revealed negative correlations between total sleep score and self-assessed PedsQL total scale, physical health, and psychosocial health scores (p<0.05) and parent-assessed PedsQL total scale and psychosocial health scores (p<0.05). The results of linear regression analysis indicated that the factors most significantly associated with lower QoL were high CSHQ total sleep score and exclusively daytime seizures (p<0.001). Significance It found children with epilepsy had poor sleep habits, low QoL, poor sleep habits have a negative impact on QoL.