Up to 7 percent of primary school pupils take sleeping pills

Children attending primary schools are taking sleeping pills or medicines to help them cope with nervousness, according to the results of a study called Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) released on Monday. The study found that 4-7 percent of primary schoolers take a sleeping pill while 7-9 percent rely on pills to overcome nervousness - in both cases once a month. The research was carried out in May 2014 on pupils aged 11, 13 and 15 from 130 primary schools across Slovakia. "Children admitted that they're often irritated, nervous and sad", said Andrea Madarasová Gecková one of the authors of the study. The pupils also often combat headaches and abdominal pain, and consume too many medicines given their age. Irritability, sadness and headaches may be down to insufficient sleep, as the survey showed that the older the children the lower the ratio of schoolers who sleep eight or more hours a day. "This likely comes on the back of time spent in front of computers, often until late nights", said Madarasová Gecková. The nervous strain, for its part, may be caused by drinking excessive amounts of energy or soda pop drinks. "Around one-fourth (of the children) admitted to drinking them on a daily basis, one in five said they consume energy drinks once a week or more often", she added. Around four in ten children aged 11 have no limitations by their parents when it comes to consuming sweets and soda pop drinks. More than one-third of the children said that they've taken painkillers to tackle headaches over the last month. Regarding stomach pains, this was found to be the case with more than one in five children.