Quality of life and sleep disturbances in Afghanistan: a large scale cross-sectional study

Abstract

Abstract Background Sleep and quality of life are closely related to one another in patients as well as in the general population of all age groups. The main objective of current study was to study the prevalence and relationship between sleep disturbance and quality of life among adults in different provinces of Afghanistan. Methods Cross-sectional study was conducted from September 5, 2023, to February 10, 2024, among 1380 adult participants (age range 18–80 years) of eight provinces in southern, western, and northern regions of Afghanistan. Quality of life was evaluated with 26-item Dari version of the World Health Organization’s Quality of Life–Bref (WHOQOL-Bref 26) while quality of sleep was assessed with Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). Results Among the 1380 study participants, 68.9% were females, 62.1% were in the age group 18–29 years, and 69.1% had experienced a bad event in the past month. Sleep disturbance was present in 50.7% (700/1380) of people with a mean PSQI global score of 6.13 which showed poor sleep quality among the study participants. In the physical, psychological, social, and environmental domains of quality of life, the study participants had low scores of 19.1%, 27.6%, 22.6%, and 26.2%, respectively. Significant sleep disturbance was found among participants with poor quality of life, those very dissatisfied with their health, and those with high scores in the physical, psychological, social, and environmental domains. Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that main factors associated with increased sleep disturbance among the study participants were among the age group 30–80 years (p-value 0.001), widowed or divorced (p-value 0.003), people with low family income (p-value < 0.001), and those who had experienced a bad event in the past month (p-value 0.001). Conclusion This study indicate that poor sleep quality is highly prevalent among the general population in Afghanistan, adversely impacting their quality of life. Future researches on quality of life are highly recommended to focus on sleep quality as a contributing factor. Additionally, well-designed prospective studies examining the correlation between PSQI scores and quality of life could facilitate the development of effective interventions aimed at enhancing quality of life.

Keywords

• Sleep disturbance
• Quality of life
• Afghanistan
• PSQI
• WHOQOL-Bref 26