Sleep Pattern and Sleep Hygiene Practices among Nigerian Schooling Adolescents

Abstract

Background:Sleep problems, especially in the adolescent stage of development, may be associated with excessive daytime sleepiness, impaired neurocognitive function, and a host of others leading to suboptimal performance.Objectives:To determine the pattern of sleep problems in school-going adolescents based on the bedtime problems; excessive daytime sleepiness; awakenings during the night and problems falling back asleep; regularity and duration of sleep; sleep-disordered breathing (BEARS) sleep screening algorithm.Materials and Methods:This is a cross-sectional descriptive study involving 353 secondary school-going adolescents in Kano metropolis. Subjects were selected for the study using multistage sampling technique. The study lasted from March 2015 to July 2015. Sleep problems were screened for using the BEARS sleep screening algorithm. Tables were used to present the qualitative data. The various BEARS sleep patterns were assessed, and comparison between stages of adolescence was done using Chi-square test (and Fisher's exact test where necessary). A significant association was considered at P < 0.05.Results:Of the 353 adolescents studied, 61.8% were males while 38.2% were females with male, female ratio of 1.6:1. Early, middle, and late adolescents constituted 13.9%, 39.9%, 46.2% respectively. BEARS sleep screening revealed awakenings during the night (34.6%) as the most common sleep-related problem reported, and this was followed by excessive daytime sleepiness (21.0%). Age-group dependent sleep duration was 7.19 ± 1.26, 7.13 ± 1.13, 7.16 ± 1.28, with P > 0.05. Although 62.9% of all the adolescents watched TV/play video games until 1 h before going to bed and this was highest in late adolescence, it was not statistically significantly associated with any of the sleep problems.Conclusion:Both the quality and quantity of sleep in Nigerian adolescents in Kano is suboptimal. Adolescent and sleep medicine should receive more attention in our environment.

Psychological distress, drug use, and internet use: the association with poor sleep quality in a sample of secondary school students

“…Our ndings revealed that 12.2% of the participants rated themselves to have PSQ. Evidence from previous studies among adolescents, such as in the USA [5], Taiwan [7], Turkey, [29] and Nigeria [3,4] revealed higher rates, compared to the current report, which is higher than what was reported in India [30]. The disparity in rates may be related to the differences in research tools used to assess sleep quality, the de nition of terms, as well as the age of the participants.…”

“…An earlier study has reported a different rate of sleep-related problems at different stages of adolescent development, with a lower rate at the early adolescence compared to late adolescence [4]. While the ranked mean age of those who reported poor quality of sleep in the present study was higher than those who did not, the difference was not statistically signi cant.…”

“…The disparity in rates may be related to the differences in research tools used to assess sleep quality, the de nition of terms, as well as the age of the participants. For example, while the mean age of the participant in the current study is lower than those from the USA [5], Taiwan [7], Turkey, [29] and Nigeria [3,4], it is slightly higher than the study from India which reported a lower prevalence [30]. It thus appears that increasing age is linked to higher sleep quality, having compared all these prevalence reports.…”

“…Sleep problems are common among children and adolescents in Nigeria [3,4] and beyond [5][6][7], and they are associated with physical and mental health indices. For example, while poor quality of sleep is associated with obesity, impaired blood lipids in adolescents [8], reduced learning capacity, and academic performance [9]; it is also associated with psychological symptoms such as depression, anxiety disorders, and behavioral disorders in studies among adolescents [9][10][11].…”

“…The relationship of sleep quality with these domains of interest: psychological distress, stimulant use, and internet use have not been adequately studied, even though there are some reports on the prevalence of poor sleep quality (PSQ) among children and adolescents in Nigeria [3,4,18]. Undoubtedly, there is growing evidence that the rate of drug (stimulant) use is increasing among adolescents in Nigeria [19] who use stimulants to stay alert and fend off sleep [20].…”