Abstract:

Getting enough sleep is very important at any age. When elementary school children do not get enough sleep, it is reflected in their daily activities, such as family life, friendships, school and sports performance.

We used a questionnaire survey method among 194 elementary school children in our work. The children were divided into two groups, 72 lower graduate (6-11 years old) and 122 upper graduate elementary schools (12-16 years old) students. The questionnaire contained 36 closed and open-ended questions and covered not only sleep habits but also demographic data and lifestyle behavior. The results were collected using paper-based questionnaires in January and February 2020 and evaluated using the Microsoft Excel 2010 program.

Differences can be observed in the case of bedtime, so lower graduate elementary school students go to bed earlier (on average 9:04 p.m. on weekdays, 9:45 p.m. on weekends) than upper school students (on average 10:21 p.m. on weekdays, 11:32 p.m. on weekends). Wake-up times also showed significant differences for both age groups on weekdays and weekends.

Our research shows that children sleep less, compared to the literature recommendations. Lower graduate elementary school students sleep an average of 9 hours 4 minutes (median 8, SD = 1.224), and upper graduate elementary school students sleep an average of 7 hours 52 minutes (median 8, SD = 1.215). Despite these data, most parents (49.5%) consider it excellent or describe the quality of their child's sleep as good (33.5%). Based on our results, waking up at night is more common among upper school children (41%, and in the case of lower graduate students, 32% wake up at night) because of primarily biological needs (31.9%) and noise (29.8%) for upper graduated students, and nightmares (42.3%) for younger age groups. Regarding difficulty falling asleep and frequent awakenings at night, it can be established that heavy meals eaten before falling asleep have a negative effect on children (77.4% find it more difficult to fall asleep, and 53.4% wake up at least once during the night), the computer, telephone, TV use (the use of blue light occurred in 61% of lower graduate children and 67% of upper graduate children, which makes it difficult to fall asleep), as well as caffeinated drinks consumed during the day (mainly in the afternoon and evening) (74% of those children those who have difficulty falling asleep at night consume some caffeinated drink in the afternoon).

Our results prove that establishing a daily routine, evening rituals, and a correct lifestyle is important for primary school children to be rested and develop properly.

Acknowledgement:
This research was supported by the Cultural and Educational Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic (Project No. 002PU-4/2021).

Keywords:

Sleep habits, sleep problems, elementary school children, caffeinated drinks, blue light.