Sleep and Behavior Problems in Children With Epilepsy.

We designed a cross-sectional study to examine the association between sleep and behavior problems in toddlers and preschool-age children with epilepsy. We found that 71 (78.9%) children slept less than 10 hours in a 24-hour period according to the actigraphy, with 75 (83.3%) children waking for more than an hour during nocturnal sleep. Twenty-five (27.8%) children usually or sometimes had an inconsistent bedtime, and 24 (26.7%) did not sleep the same amount each day. Twenty-nine (32.2%) and 18 (20.0%) children had an internalizing and externalizing problem in clinical range, respectively. Sleep anxiety was significantly (p < .01) associated with increased internalizing and externalizing problems, even after the relevant epilepsy variables were controlled for. Findings from our study suggest that screening of sleep and behavior problems should be part of routine epilepsy care to identify children with problematic sleep and unrecognized sleep disorders and those at risk of behavioral dysfunction.