Abstract

Objective: To report the most commonly experienced night and daytime behavior and symptoms by a group of Saudi OSA children and compare them with a healthy control. Methods: 27 mothers of OSA children (study group) and 27 mothers of healthy, none OSA children, with comparable age and gender, (control group) answered the study questionnaire, on behalf of their children, about sleep-time and daytime behavior and symptoms. Results: The mean (±SD) yes answers for the night-time questions for the study group was 6.07 (±2.759), and 0.7 (±0.8) for the control. For the daytime, the mean yes answers was 1.6 (±0.9) for the study and 0.19 (±0.3) for the control group. Independent samples t-test showed statistically significant differences between the means P=0.000. A statistically significant difference was found between the two groups in the responses for ten of the evaluated night-time symptoms and only one of the daytime symptoms. Conclusions: 1. OSA children had significantly more night and daytime symptoms than the control. 2. Chronic, heavy snoring, difficult breathing during sleep, mouth breathing (during sleep and daytime), and restless sleep were the most commonly reported symptoms.