LAUSR

There are many people with a late chronotype in restless legs syndrome(RLS) patients. This phenomenon may be caused by sleep disturbance due to lower extremity symptoms of RLS, or it may be caused by some disease-specific characteristic of RLS, involving the circadian system. The aim of this study is to estimate the cause of this phenomenon. This study is a retrospective study and was performed on 100 RLS patients without other major sleep disorders and 51 control subjects. Patients taking hypnotics such as benzodiazepines, melatonin, and zolpidem were also excluded. A survey on various sleep questionnaire scores was made for RLS patients. The questionnaire scores between the two groups were compared, and the collected data were analyzed with a significance level of 0.05. When the severity of RLS was evaluated by the IRLS score and the proportion of patients with late chronotype was checked by severity, it was 31.1% in the mild group, 41.7% in the moderate group, and 52.6% in the severe group(p=0.420). When the patient group with mild severity was compared with the entire patient group, the PSQI level was 82.0% of the total patient group(p=0.026). RLS patients are more likely to have a late chronotype than those without RLS. The higher the severity of RLS symptoms, the higher the rate of having a late chronotype. Therefore, it could be inferred that the late chronotype identified in RLS patients was secondary to sleep disturbances caused by RLS symptoms.