Sleep disorders and systemic lupus erythematosus

Abstract

Sleep disorders appear to occur in more than half of patients with SLE and appear to be associated with disease activity. Pain and fatigue are also related to sleep disorders. Among the hypotheses on the possible mechanisms underlining the association between sleep disorders and SLE, psychosocial/psychological factors, especially depression, were the most frequently reported.

Sleep quality, clinical and psychological manifestations in women with systemic lupus erythematosus

“…In health‐related quality of life, we found very similar results, as obtained in the Spanish validation of LupusQoL, emotional health and burden to others being the most affected domains . The differences in fatigue and mood between SLE patients and healthy controls also were congruent with previous studies in which the patients were showing higher levels of fatigue, anxiety and depression than healthy participants . The difference in perceived stress was not statistically significant; however, a P ‐value close to significance (0.79) was found.…”

“…We found that SLE patients reported poorer sleep quality, as shown in the differences in PSQI scores with regard to the healthy sample in subjective sleep quality, sleep latency, sleep duration, sleep disturbance, use of sleeping medication, daytime dysfunction and the PSQI global index. These results are similar to those obtained in other studies, for example in the review of Palagini et al ., in which more than half of their SLE patients had sleep problems, an increased sleep latency, more awakenings during the night and lower sleep efficiency than a healthy population …”

“…The complex and reciprocal relation between depression and sleep problems has wide support in the literature. For example, some studies using regression models found the level of depression as the main determinant of sleep quality in SLE patients …”

“…Nevertheless, the few studies that have analyzed this question had several methodological limitations, such as the great variability of samples or the use of different assessment techniques. Very few studies have included objective sleep measures like actigraphy or polysomnography (PSG) . Thus, although some investigations have explored the sleep difficulties of SLE patients, prevalence data and characteristics of sleep in SLE remain incomplete and inconclusive.…”

Symptom clustering in patients with childhood‐onset systemic lupus erythematosus

“…However, the pain of SLE patients may have significant physical and psychological impacts on them. For example, research has found the higher the pain levels, the worse the sleep and fatigue perceived by patients (Palagini et al, 2014). Pain may also result in the problem of depression (Figueiredo-Braga et al, 2018).…”