DEVELOPMENT AND IN VITRO EVALUATION OF PEDIATRIC LOZENGE FORMULATIONS CONTAINING MELATONIN

Sleep-related complaints of pediatric patients include difficulty falling asleep, waking up at night, snoring, excessive daytime sleepiness, and daytime dysfunction. Melatonin is commonly used to treat sleep difficulties. Melatonin use is also important in improving symptoms other than sleep problems, such as anxiety, depression, pain and gastrointestinal dysfunction. Lozenges have advantages such as being easy-to-administer dosage forms for children, not needing to be swallowed, being easy to change their contents and customize for the patient, having a long disintegration time, keeping the active ingredient in contact with the buccal mucosa for a very long time, and being prepared in different ways and given to children like candy.