Sleep problems among parents of children with autism spectrum disorders in oman: A case control study

Objectives: Studies largely from Western countries have indicated a high rate of sleep problems among parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study was conducted in Oman, a Middle Eastern Arab country, in order to compare indices of sleep behavior and sleep quality among parents of children with presently operationalized control intellectual disabled (ID) and typically developing children (TD). Design: Case control study Setting: The quality of sleep was quantified using Arabic version of Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). The highest performance in PSQI signifies poor quality of sleep. Subjects: Parents with ASD children (n = 220), ID (n = 109), and TD (n = 125) Main outcome measure: Overall, the performance of PSQI among parents with ASD are higher compared to control group (6.6, 6.0 vs. 5.5; p-value 0.001) indicating that parents with ASD endorsed more sleeping problems than parents with ID and TD children. Results: In terms of performance in subscale of PSQI, parents of children with ASD endorsed themselves poorly in indices of subjective sleep quality, sleep latency and duration, compared to controls. Risk of having poor sleep quality was significantly higher among parents of ASD and ID children compared to TD children (p-value <0.05). Conclusions: This study provides preliminary evidence of quality of sleep among parents caring for children with ASD, ID and TD. This study is in consonant with the trend from elsewhere, indicating that parents of children with ASD have poor quality of sleep and all the consequences this may entail.