prevalence of parasomnia in school aged children in tehran.

objectives: parasomnias can create sleep disruption; in this article we assessed parasomnias in school-aged children in tehran . methods: in spring 2005, a total of 6000 sleep questionnaires were distributed to school-aged children in 5 districts of tehran (iran). a modified pediatrics sleep questionnaire with 34 questions was used. results: parasomnias varied from 0.5% to 5.7% among the subjects as follows: 2.7% sleep talking, 0.5% sleepwalking, 5.7% bruxism, 2.3% enuresis, and nightmare 4%. a group of children showed parasomnias occasionally- this was 13.1% for sleep talking, 1.4% for sleepwalking, 10.6% for bruxism, 3.1% for enuresis and 18.4% for nightmares. conclusion: a high proportion of children starting school suffer from sleep problems. in many cases this is a temporary, developmentally related phenomenon, but in 6% of the children the disorder is more serious and may be connected with various stress factors and further behavioral disturbances.