There Remains a Dearth of Data on the Epide- Miology of Sleep Disorders among Adoles- Cents. by Way of Illustration, Ohayon

177 THERE REMAINS A DEARTH OF DATA ON THE EPIDEMIOLOGY OF SLEEP DISORDERS AMONG ADOLESCENTS. BY WAY OF ILLUSTRATION, OHAYON AND GUILLEMINAULT1 reviewed epidemiologic studies published over a 20-year period that had focused on insomnia, excessive sleepiness, sleep-disordered breathing, and parasomnia. Not a single one focused on adolescents. Little has changed since that review. Four papers have estimated the prevalence of sleep disorders using diagnostic criteria2-5, and all have focused on insomnia. These studies report prevalences ranging from 4.4% for point prevalence to 13.4% for past year for insomnia, to 10.7% for lifetime insomnia among adolescents. Some evidence exists concerning the natural history of disordered sleep. The overwhelming focus has been on symptoms of insomnia or other types of sleep difficulties and not on sleep disorders per se. These studies report low to moderate stability of sleep problems from early childhood into adolescence and early adulthood for sleep measures such as duration, bedtime, wake time, difficulty initiating or maintaining sleep, napping, nonrestorative sleep, and daytime sleepiness or fatigue.6-12 Stability of sleep problems, in particular symptoms of insomnia, have been reported as high as 48% to 52% over 2 to 4 Sleep DiSturbance in aDoleScentS