Abstract
Background: Insomnia can affect daily life, and it can result in poor job performance and decrease the quality of life. Using sleeping pills is common among the adult population either due to psychological or physiological causes. This study was done to assess the prevalence of sleeping pills and associated factors among primary care patients.
Methodology: A Cross-sectional study was conducted in Primary Health Care Centers between August 2015 to July 2016. A total of 320 Saudi adults of both genders were included using a convenience sampling method. A self-administered questionnaire was utilized for data collection. The questionnaire consisted of questions about demographics, factors associated with the use of sleeping pills, knowledge, and practice of patients regarding sleeping pills use.
Results: The study that out of 320 participants, 41 (12.81%) used sleeping pills. 90.2% of the users did not have prescriptions. The use of sleeping pills was significantly increased by being married (51.2%) (p-value 0.001), presence of sleeping difficulties (92.7%) (p-value 0.000) and presence of life stressors (75.6%) (P-value 0.000). Total 167 participants (52.2%) had sleep difficulties of whom 98 participants (30.6%) had frequent awakenings from sleep, sleep was non-refreshing for 46 participants (14. 4%) and 41 (12.8%) had difficulty in initiating sleep. The majority of participants had good knowledge about sleeping pills effect and their use.
Conclusion: The prevalence of using sleeping pills among Saudi adults is not common. Further studies with large sample size are needed to study this issue in details.

Key words: sleeping pills; primary care patients; over the counter medication; prescription