Sleep difficulties, pain and other correlates

Abstract

A multiple regression analysis was used with variables relevant to sleeping problems from a large community health survey in South Australia. The variables that were found to be most strongly correlated with sleep problems were, in order of importance, pain, anxiety, age, somatic health and annual household income, all of which accounted for 22% of the variance. Weight problems, depression and sex of the respondent were not so important in this analysis. Arthritis, which often increases with age, appeared to be most strongly associated with pain, explaining in part why sleeping problems increase with age. Anxiety, pain and poor somatic health were most strongly associated with lying awake at night or sleeping badly, and anxiety and pain were most strongly correlated with taking longer to get to sleep. Poor somatic health and anxiety were most strongly associated with waking early, and age and pain were the most important variables in taking tablets to aid sleep.

Pain as a mediator of sleep problems in arthritis and other chronic conditions

“…This includes the strong independent associations found with pain (8,9,15,24,25) as well as the associations found with the other chronic conditions studied (7)(8)(9)(10). Consistent with other studies, we also found that women were significantly more likely than men to report insomnia symptoms (8,33,42,43).…”

“…Responses of "never" were considered to indicate unrefreshing sleep and responses of "most of the time" and "sometimes" were grouped to indicate the absence of this sleep problem. (33,37), lifestyle factors (25,38), other chronic conditions (8,9), and mental health (39,40) have all been linked to sleep disorders, and as such, an a priori decision was made to include these factors in multivariate analyses. Lifestyle factors.…”

“…They compromise quality of life, psychosocial wellbeing, and occupational and educational performance, and result in increased morbidity, mortality, and health care utilization (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6). There is growing evidence that sleep is affected as a consequence of physical health, with poor health precipitating or contributing to existing sleep difficulties (7)(8)(9)(10). Arthritis has been found to be associated with sleep problems in a number of studies, although these studies have mainly been conducted on small patient populations and have tended to focus on inflammatory forms of the disease (8,(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21).…”

“…Pain is the cardinal symptom of arthritis and is a strong correlate of sleep problems in community-based samples (8,9,15,24,25). A Gallup survey conducted in the 1990s found that 1 in 3 adult Americans experiences nighttime pain and sleeplessness, and that one-third of respondents with nighttime pain reported arthritic pain (26).…”

Epidemiology of Insomnia: Prevalence and Risk Factors

“…Links between poor physical health and insomnia have repeatedly been demonstrated, (Moffitt et al, 1991;Sutton et al, 2001;Martikainen et al, 2003;Roth & Roehrs, 2003;Buysse, 2004;Ohayon & Bader, 2010) as many diseases involve pain and/or distress that can interfere with sleep. Using data from the 2002 Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS): Mental Health and Well-being, Tjpkema (2005), reported that over 20% of people with asthma, arthritis/rheumatism, back problems or diabetes reported insomnia, compared with around 12% of people who did not have these conditions.…”