Session Information
Date: Tuesday, June 6, 2017
Session Title: Restless Legs Syndrome and Other Sleep Disorders
Session Time: 1:45pm-3:15pm
Location: Exhibit Hall C
Objective: To determine the frequency of restless legs syndrome (RLS) in pregnant women and its impact on quality of sleep (QoS) and quality of life (QoL).
Background: RLS is a relatively common disorder occurring more frequently in certain groups, such as people with anaemia, uraemia, in pregnancy and as a side effect of certain medication.
Methods: Authors designed a sociodemographic questionnaire that was completed by pregnant women and a control group of non-pregnant, age-matched women. In addition, pregnant women positive for RLS (based on IRLSSG) were given a standardised international questionnaire about the QoL for people suffering from RLS (RLS-QoL). Pregnant women without neurological disorders were used as a control group when testing for QoS and QoL. All participants signed an informed consent and ethical committee approved the study. Rights to use RLS-QoL translated to Croatian were obtained by the authors (SF-MPQ-2 © R. Melzack and the IMMPACT, 2017.)
Results: Data was analysed using R software. By applying Fisher’s exact test, frequency of RLS was found to be significantly higher (p<0.05) in the group of pregnant women when compared to non-pregnant women. Analysis of different variables determining QoS and QoL showed consistently significantly lower values for the group of RLS positive pregnant women compared to pregnant women without neurological disorders.
Conclusions: The study showed that the frequency of RLS was higher in the group of pregnant women when compared to the control group. Considering RLS is common disorder often left unrecognised, and therefore untreated, we feel studies such as this help raise awareness about RLS. Proper education of both general population and medical community would lead to an increase in diagnosing and thus properly treating RLS in pregnancy. In addition, during the study, pregnant women with RLS were given instructions on how to best cope with symptoms, including lowered quality of sleep that was detected. Authors believe this will lead to an increase in QoS and subsequently QoL.
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
S. Telarovic, L. Condic, I. Telarovic. Restless legs syndrome in pregnancy: frequency and impact on quality of life and sleep [abstract]. Mov Disord. 2017; 32 (suppl 2). https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/restless-legs-syndrome-in-pregnancy-frequency-and-impact-on-quality-of-life-and-sleep/. Accessed June 14, 2025.« Back to 2017 International Congress
MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/restless-legs-syndrome-in-pregnancy-frequency-and-impact-on-quality-of-life-and-sleep/