Sleep Habits and Maternal Anxiety in Children with Growing Pains: A Comparative Cross-Sectional Study

Background: Growing pains commonly present as recurrent evening or nocturnal musculoskeletal pain in childhood. Evidence on associated sleep disturbance and maternal anxiety is limited. We compared affected children with healthy controls and examined sleep-related factors. Methods: A total of 138 children aged 4-12 years were included in this single-center study, comprising 71 children with growing pains and 67 age- and sex-comparable healthy controls. Growing pains were diagnosed using the Peterson criteria. Pain severity was assessed using age-appropriate self-report instruments, while sleep habits and maternal anxiety were evaluated with the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7), respectively. Multivariable regression identified factors associated with CSHQ total scores. Results: Children with growing pains had higher CSHQ total scores than healthy controls [49.0 (33.0-81.0) vs. 42.0 (31.0-79.0), p < 0.001], and scores above the screening cut-off were more frequent (76.1% vs. 52.2%, p = 0.003). Maternal GAD-7 scores did not differ between groups (p = 0.531). After multivariable adjustment, growing pains (p = 0.020) and higher maternal GAD-7 scores (p = 0.003) were independently associated with higher CSHQ scores in the overall sample. Among children with growing pains, greater pain severity was independently associated with higher CSHQ scores (p = 0.033), whereas maternal GAD-7 score was not. Conclusions: Children with growing pains had greater sleep disturbance than healthy controls after multivariable adjustment. Higher maternal GAD-7 scores were associated with sleep disturbance overall, but not within the growing-pains group. Greater pain severity was independently associated with sleep disturbance in affected children. These findings support sleep assessment in this population.