Correlation Between Sleep Quality and Blood Pressure Changes in Iranian Children

Background: Hypertension has a growing trend all around the world among children. Evidences imply that inadequate sleep duration and its poor quality are related to hypertension. But there are only few studies to show this relationship in children. Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the correlation between sleep quality parameters and blood pressure (BP) changes in children. Patients and Methods: Eighty six patients aged 5-15 years old with the history of urinary tract infection were included in this study. They underwent 24-hour BP monitoring. In addition, the Pittsburg Sleep Quality index questionnaire was filled out and the data were compared with BP records. Results: After excluding duplicate cases and those with insufficient data, 76 children entered into study. Overall sleep quality was good in 48 and poor in 28 children. Mean diastolic BP load (P = 0.019), diastolic load awake-time (P = 0.045), mean systolic sleep-time (P = 0.022), non-dipper state (P = 0.009) were statistically different among groups. By dividing the children into two groups of good and poor sleeper, the parameters of BP were not different. In addition, there was no correlation between BP classifications and sleep latency, duration of sleep, sleep efficiency, sleep disturbance, day dysfunction due to sleepiness, and overall sleep quality score. Conclusions: Our study could not show any correlation between sleep quality and ambulatory BP monitoring parameters in children with abnormal BP.