Abstracts

Sleep disturbances are a common complain among patients with epilepsy. Studies assessing the relationship between sleep and epilepsy during infancy are scarce. The purpose of this study was to evaluate sleep quality in children with epilepsy., Cross sectional study where two questionnaires regarding sleep quality, were applied to children with and without epilepsy. Data about sleep characteristics and epilepsy were also collected (type of seizure, epileptic syndrome, number of seizures, use of anticonvulsant drugs)., In the age group of children from 2 to 6 years old, we have observed that children with epilepsy have worst sleep habits than children without epilepsy (p[lt]0,05). Among the epilepsy group, children having nocturnal seizures present more frequently worse sleep habits when compared to the children with daytime seizures (p[lt]0,04). Children who use a single AED have better sleep habits than children with polytherapy (p[lt]0,01). As the delay of the neuropsychomotor development was worst, the frequency of the worst sleep habits were greater (p[lt]0,04). Children with epilepsy presenting an Engel score equal or greater than 7 have greater frequency of worst sleep habits when compared to children with better controled seizures (p[lt]0,001). Children with benign epilepsies present more frequently better sleep habits when compared to children with bad prognosis epilepsy (p[lt]0,04).
In the group of children 7 to 14 years old, patients with epilepsy have a worst sleep quality when compared to the control group. In the group of children with epilepsy, the mean score of the questionnaire in patients with daytime seizures was lower than the group with nocturnal seizures (p[lt]0,001). There was no significant difference for the scores of the sleep questionnaires among the types of used drugs (p=0,13); however, the comparison between monotherapy and polytherapy showed that the group under polytherapy had a greater score in the sleep questionnaire or worse sleep quality (p[lt]0,001). Children with epilepsy and neuropsychomotor developmental delay have a mean sleep score greater than children with epilepsy without delay (p[lt]0,001). We have observed a positive correlation among high scores of sleep questionnaire and high scores of the Engel scale (p[lt]0,001), meaning that patients with bad seizure control have worse quality of sleep. The analyses of seizure type showed worse quality of sleep in patients with generalized seizures (p=0,04). Patients with severe epileptic syndromes have worse quality of sleep (p[lt]0,001)., Our results showed that children with epilepsy presented greater incidence of sleep problems when compared to children without epilepsy. In the group of epileptic patients we observed that night seizures, polytherapy, developmental delay, refractory epilepsy, generalized seizures, and epileptic syndromes with unfavourable outcome were predictors for worse sleep quality., (Supported by CAPES.)