Evaluation of Daily Rhythm in High School Children

Abstract

Background: Regular night’s sleep, which is among the most fundamental needs of human beings, is accepted as one of the most important factors of health and quality of life at all ages. Daily rhythm patterns effect one’s attention, memory, problem solving skills, work, and academic performance. This research study was planned to determine daily rhythm awareness among adolescents. Considering the psychological and physiological factors brought about by the adolescent age, it is considered that it is more important to evaluate this age group in terms of daily rhythm awareness. The aim of this study was to determine the daily rhythm pattern of adolescent age group by applying the Circadian Rhythm Assessment Scale to high school children.Method: The study was performed in the Pediatric Clinics of Tepecik Training and Research Hospital after approvals from the local ethics committee of the hospital, and provincial national education directorate ethics committee were obtained. The students who were between the ages of 14–18 and continuing their high school education in Izmir constituted the study population. Undersigned consent forms were obtained from children who agreed to participate in the study. The sample size was calculated as 2144 participants with a margin of simple random sampling, 0.2 error margin, 0.80 power value, and 95% confidence interval.Results: Questionnaire forms were distributed to a total of 2144 accessible high school students, and 1953 students answered the question inquiring their grades. Accordingly, the students were in the 9th 42% , 10th 29.4% , 11th 15.9% , and 12th 3.8% grades, while 57.3% of the study group consisted of female students. When the relationship between total scale score and gender was evaluated, it was seen that boys obtained statistically significantly higher scores than girls p=0.000 . There was no significant difference between the scale scores and the grades of the students p=0.452 . When the relationship between the grades and the survey questions was evaluated, it was seen that in higher grades c and d options of the 4thquestion were ticked, in other words the evening hours were more frequently preferred in higher grades r=0.086, p=0.000 .Conclusion: This study will raise awareness on the concept of morningness/eveningness and the factors affecting it, especially in adolescents and also it will contribute to the literature