Prevalence of Poor Quality of Sleep among the Elderly Population: A Community-based Cross-sectional Study

Abstract

Background: The spike in cases of sleep-related issues and its ill effects among the geriatric population has been highly noted these days. The drop in sleep quality has been seen to be associated with various day-to-day factors. The study has been conducted to mark the quality of sleep and the factors associated with it in the elderly population. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted among the elderly population. A face-to-face interview of 89 individuals over 60 years of age was conducted. The study tool for assessment of the quality of sleep was Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Chi-square test was done to find out the association between various factors and quality of sleep. Results: The prevalence of poor sleep quality was 58.43%. About 35.95% of the population had bad subjective sleep quality, 12.36% population had sleep latency of 31–60 min, while 22.47% population had sleep duration of <5 h. Eight percent of the population reported the use of sleep medication, and 23.6% of population reported sleep disturbance of more than thrice a week. Thirty-five (67.3%) females reported poor quality of sleep which was found to be statistically significant. Conclusion: The prevalence of poor sleep quality was found to be high among the elderly population. Educating the population about sleep health and methods to combat the situation by health-care workers can result in significant improvement of the conditions.

Keywords

• elderly population
• quality
• sleep