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. 2022 Jan 14;8(1):e27. doi: 10.1192/bjo.2021.1076

Table 2.

Sleep disorders

Name Diagnostic criteria Considerations Treatment
Insomnia DSM-510
  • Dissatisfaction with sleep quantity or quality, with complaints of difficulty initiating and/or maintaining sleep, accompanied by clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning, which can occur independently or during the course of another mental disorder or medical condition

ICSD-319
  • Persistent difficulty with sleep initiation, duration, consolidation or quality that occurs despite adequate opportunity and circumstances for sleep, and results in some form of daytime impairment.

  • Subcategorised into chronic insomnia disorder, short-term insomnia disorder, other insomnia disorder, isolated symptoms and normal variants, excessive time in bed and short sleeper19,22

Paediatric insomnia
Reports from young people and parents or carers need to be taken into consideration when assessing for insomnia23
Psychoeducation
Behavioural management
Pharmacotherapy
CRDs Delayed sleep phase disorder
  • Most common

  • Typical sleep onset and wake time are more than 2 hours later than the age-related norm

  • Causes difficulties waking up for school and lack of sleep

Advanced sleep–wake phase disorder
  • People tend to fall asleep and wake up more than 2 hours before their desired time

  • Less common in those aged <18 years

Irregular sleep–wake rhythm disorder
  • Inconsistent sleep pattern

People with CRDs are unable to sleep and wake at the times required for normal work, school or social needs11 Sleep–wake scheduling
Timed light exposure
Melatonin
Sleep-related breathing disorders OSA
  • Snoring, unusual sleeping positions (e.g. hyperextended neck or seated with open mouth), sleep-related paradoxical breathing, night-time diaphoresis or enuresis, morning headaches, prolonged sleep time, difficulty waking, irritability and excessive daytime sleepiness

  • OSA is the most common sleep-related breathing disorder

  • Affects 1–5% of children between 2 and 8 years of age24

Adenotonsillectomy is the primary treatment of this condition in those aged <8 years25
Continuous positive airway pressure therapy for older children25
Parasomnias NREM parasomnias
  • Confusion, automatic behaviours, difficulty awakening, minimal recall and often return to sleep after the event

Sleepwalking
  • More common in children than adults

  • Can be associated with other parasomnias

  • No distress to the child, but disrupts others26

Sleep terrors
  • Episodes of partial, abrupt awakening from deep sleep, accompanied by inconsolable screaming and crying and autonomic arousal, but again, minimal recall for the child10

REM-related parasomnias
Nightmares
  • Typically occur in the last half of the sleep period1,27,28

NREM parasomnias
  • Most common in children and are more likely in the first third of the night, during stage 3 sleep

Psychoeducation
Behavioural management
Treatment of comorbidities
REM-related parasomnias
  • Frequently encountered in childhood

  • Often resolve in adolescence

  • Common for all children but typically occur with recall and distress

Narcolepsy and hypersomnia Narcolepsy
  • Excessive daytime sleepiness, fragmented night sleep, sleep paralysis, vivid dreams and hypnagogic hallucinations

Narcolepsy
  • Rare sleep disorder resulting from the loss of a specific population of hypocretinergic neurons

  • It has a prevalence of 0.1%19 and the mean age of onset is 14 years

  • About 70% of affected people have cataplexy

Psychoeducation
Behavioural management
Pharmacotherapy (stimulants)
Primary hypersomnia in children
  • Excessive sleep duration for developmental norms, impaired quality of wakefulness or sleep inertia29

Primary hypersomnia in children
  • Has a prevalence of 0.8%29

  • May simply represent a slight delay in normal development30

ICSD-3, International Classification of Sleep Disorders, Third Edition; CRD, circadian rhythm disorder; OSA, obstructive sleep apnoea; NREM, non-rapid eye movement; REM, rapid eye movement.