Sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) is associated with behavior problems in children with asthma, researchers have found.

“Studies have linked asthma symptoms with both childhood behavior problems and troubled sleep,” according to the study team, and there is “growing, but limited, evidence that children with SDB may have worse behavior.”

Dr. Maria Fagnano and colleagues from the University of Rochester School of Medicine, New York, studied 194 children with asthma who were between 4 and 10 years old.

A third of the children had SDB and nearly a third had significant behavioral issues, they report in the latest issue of the journal Pediatrics.

Based on the Behavioral Problem Index (BPI), which doctors often use to spot and quantify behavior problems in kids, children with SDB had significantly worse behavior overall compared to those with no sleep difficulties.

They also had worse scores on several subcategories of the BPI including externalizing behavior (acting out), internalizing behavior, antisocial behavior, hyperactivity, anxiety and depression and peer conflict.

“Additional investigation is needed to determine if treatment of sleep disorders would help to decrease behavior problems in this population,” the investigators say.

In the meantime, they suggest that doctors be “particularly diligent about screening all children with asthma for SDB, and consider sleep disorders as a possible risk factor for behavior problems.”

SOURCE: Pediatrics, July 2009.