To investigate the prevalence and clinical significance of sleep disordered breathing (SDB) in children.

BACKGROUND: Sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) in children appears to be a common condition, involving approximately 1-3 percent of children. Many aspects of childhood SDB remain understudied and poorly understood, including its precise prevalence, the optimal means of identifying children who should undergo polysomnography, and the potentially major impact of this condition on health, cognitive development, and behavior.

DESIGN NARRATIVE: The population-based, cross sectional study of 6 to 16 year old schoolchildren in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania uses a two-phase protocol: 1) questionnaire completed by the parents of every child enrolled in local elementary school which will assess general sleep, behavior and learning problems; 2) a random sample of 1,000 selected from the first sample based on risk for sleep disordered breathing and evaluated in the sleep laboratory to determine the presence of sleep disordered breathing. In the second phase a thorough pediatric ear/nost/throat and pulmonary evaluation will be conducted and school records and behavior will be assessed. The parents of this group will be interviewed for the family history of risk factors associated with sleep disordered breathing in children. This strategy will yield adequate power to establish the prevalence and clinical significance of sleep disordered breathing in children.

Ages Eligible for Study:  6 Years   -   16 Years,  Genders Eligible for Study:  Both

Criteria