Abstract Mkid 74

Night terrors are defined as sudden arousals from slow wave sleep accompanied with intense fear. They must be distinguished from nightmares, posttraumatic reenactments and nocturnal panic attacks. The present study investigated the relationship between night terror frequency and sleep and waking-life behavior in children aged 6 to 11. The prevalence rate of night terrors was 18 % and 4 % of the children experience night terrors once or more a week. The results indicate that parasomnias such as nightmares, night terrors and sleepwalking often occur together. In contrast to nightmare frequency, no substantial correlation between personality and night terror frequency emerged. As expected, the occurrence of stressors (hospitalization, school problems, parental divorce and amount of TV consumption) was associated with night terrors. However, the pattern was gender specific. Longitudinal studies should be carried out in order to investigate whether stress is also responsible for intra-individual fluctuations. Such investigations may prove fruitful for developing and evaluating effective treatment strategies for night terrors in children.