Chronic insomnia among adolescents

Adolescents with insomnia, particularly chronic insomnia, are at greater risk of future somatic and especially psychological problems. Insomnia is a classification of sleep disorders in which a person has trouble falling asleep, staying asleep or waking up too early. These disorders may also be defined by an overall poor quality of sleep. Insomnia is chronic in our society, especially among adolescents.Researchers in America assessed information collected from 4,175 adolescents aged between 11 and 17 years. Initially, more than 27 per cent of the youths reported having one or more symptoms of insomnia over the previous four weeks. Symptoms included trouble falling asleep, waking in the middle of the night and having trouble getting back to sleep, frequent nighttime wake/sleep patterns, waking up very early, or 'non-restorative' sleep. In the follow-up one year later, which consisted of 3,134 of these youths, 20 per cent had one or more symptoms, six per cent had one or more symptoms plus daytime fatigue or sleepiness, and five per cent had insomnia caseness. Rates of chronicity were 46 per cent for one or more symptoms, 35 per cent with daytime fatigue or sleepiness, and 23 per cent for insomnia caseness. There were no effects of age, sex or family income in predicting incidence or chronicity of insomnia. There was an association of both somatic and psychological dysfunction, with stronger prediction for psychological dysfunction.The current findings suggest that insomnia is not only a major public health problem, but also a major chronic disease affecting a substantial portion of the adolescent population. Prevalence of insomnia is comparable to that of other major psychiatric disorders such as mood, anxiety, disruptive, and substance use disorders. This calls for health care givers to focus and deal with insomnia among adolescents, so that they get 8-9 hours of nightly sleep.