Background and Purpose: Considering the prevalence of sleep problems and the occurrence of aggression in childhood and the effect of physical activity on improving the physical and mental condition of children, the present study was conducted to compare the sleep habits and aggression of athlete and non-athlete children.
Method: The design of the present study was casual-comparative. For this aim, 120 male students studying at grades 4 to 6 of the primary school in Ardabil city in 2019-2020 were selected. Then, based on frequent attendance in sports teams, they were divided into two groups of athletes and non-athletes by purposive sampling method. Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire (Owens, 2000) and Aggression Questionnaire for Primary School Children (Shahim, 2006) were used to gather the data. Independent t-test was used to compare the overall scores of the two groups of students and multivariate analysis of variance was utilized to compare the subscales of aggression and sleep habits of the two groups.
Results: data analysis indicated that athlete children were better than non-athlete children in both variables of aggression and sleep habits (P≤0.038, P≤0.001). Results also showed that athlete children were significantly better than the non-athlete children in the subscales of sleep resistance (P≤0.003), sleep delay (P≤0.001), sleep duration (P≤0.001), insomnia (P≤0.005), and physical, relational, and verbal aggression (P≤0.001).
Conclusion: Therefore, it can be concluded that regular physical activity in the form of different sports can improve children's sleep patterns and reduce aggression in them.