Is the population properly informed about sleep disorders? A população está devidamente informada sobre os distúrbios do sono?

ABSTRACT Objective: To measure the prior knowledge about sleep disorders and patient’s ability to report their problems adequately to health profes-sionals. Methods: We analyzed 208 patient’s records and extracted the following information: date of birth, gender, medical diagnostic hy-potheses, patient’s primary complaint in their words, considering the most appropriated semantic approximation to the perceptual phenom -ena, either by their own or by reasoning information from the partner. We compared the agreement (Kappa’s test) between patient’s complaint and medical diagnosis. The 95% confidence interval was used to analyze proportions. Results: We found strong correlations for bruxism; moderate for snoring, insomnia, nightmares, somniloquy, and restless legs syndrome; fair for excessive movement during sleep (EMDS) and obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSA). Conclusions: The observed correlations were heterogeneous, but important diseases such as OSA and EMDS in children showed fair and weak correlations. This suggests an unsatisfactory knowledge level among the population about these disorders, despite their high prevalence and impact on patient’s overall health.Key words: sleep disorders, sleep apnea, obstructive, epidemiology, public health.