Sleep quality in children and adolescents with obsessive-compulsive disorders

Abstract

Background

Although the effect of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) on sleep is not well-known, recent studies suggest an association between OCD and sleep quality.

Aims

We aimed to assess sleep quality in children and adolescents with OCD and to seek its association with OCD symptoms and OCD severity.

Methods

All of the subjects were assessed using DSM 5 and affective disorders and schizophrenia for school-age children – present and lifetime version, which is based on DSM-IV. The Yale-Brown obsessive-compulsive scale and children’s Yale-Brown obsessive-compulsive scale were applied to the subjects with OCD. Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI) was used to assess sleep quality, and the Wechsler intelligence scale for children-revised (WISC-R) was used to measure their intelligence levels.

Results

PSQI total score was significantly higher in patients with OCD (p < 0.001), suggesting that patients with OCD have a significantly worse sleep quality. The presence of somatic disorders was also associated with worse sleep quality (p = 0.040). Sleep quality was not significantly associated with OCD severity (p = 0.152). Among patients with extreme OCD, the ‘sleep duration’ component of the PSQI was higher than those with moderate or severe OCD (p = 0.019). The patients with ‘contamination/cleaning’ symptom group had a lower total PSQI score compared with ‘symmetry/hoarding’ symptom group (p = 0.014).

Conclusions

The findings of the present study indicate that the sleep quality of children and adolescents with OCD is influenced, and there may be an association between sleep quality and OCD symptoms and severity in these patients.

Keywords:

• Adolescent
• children
• obsessive-compulsive disorder
• sleep quality

Acknowledgments

The authors thank all the patients and their families for participating in the study.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dilşad Yıldız Miniksar

Dilşad Yıldız Miniksar is MD at Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Department of Bozok University.

Mikail Özdemir

Mikail Özdemir provided MD degree at Public Heatlh Department of Marmara University and is currently coordinator at Osmaniye Tuberculosis Dispensary.