Sleep quality and its impacts on quality of life among military personnel in remote frontier areas and extreme cold environments

Abstract

Background: Poor sleep quality negatively affects the readiness of military operations and is also associated with the development of mental health disorders and decreased quality of life. The purpose of this study was to investigate the sleep quality of military personnel from remote boundaries of China and its relationship with coping strategies, anxiety, and health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Methods: A cross-sectional survey was performed among military officers and soldiers from a frontier defence department and an extreme cold environment. The participants were surveyed using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Trait Coping Style Questionnaire (TCSQ), Self-rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), and Short Form Health Survey (SF-36). Results: A total of 489 military officers and soldiers were included. The participants had a mean age of 22.29 years. The median overall PSQI score was 7.0 (IQR, 4.0~9.0), with 40.9% (200/489) of the subjects reporting poor sleep quality. The difficulties with sleep were mainly related to daytime dysfunction due to disrupted sleep, sleep latency, and subjective sleep quality. The median score of the SF-36 physical component was 83.5 (IQR, 73.0~90.5), and the median score of the mental component was 74.1 (IQR, 60.4~85.1). Significant correlations were found between the PSQI and SF-36 (r = − 0.435, P < 0.01). Anxiety symptoms, marital status, educational background, and global PSQI score were demonstrated as predictors of a low SF-36 physical component by multiple regression analysis (F = 17.06, P < 0.001, R 2 = 0.117). Conclusions: Sleep difficulty is a prevalent and underestimated problem in the military that negatively influences HRQoL, especially in physical and social functioning. Evaluation of and education on pain were recommended because of body pain and its negative impacts on sleep quality, coping strategies, anxious emotions and HRQoL.

An integrative review of comprehensive nursing assessment tools developed based on Gordon's Eleven Functional Health Patterns

“…Sleep-Rest Pattern: Poor sleep quality has been associated with negative health outcomes, such as impaired self-care (Spedale et al, 2020;Wang et al, 2020). However, nursing assessment of sleep remains a challenge.…”

Sleep and affect: A conceptual review

“…This is not surprising given that many measures of sleep disturbances were composites of the other domains. We identified robust positive associations between matching timescales for self-reports, such that greater short-term sleep disturbances were associated with greater short-term negative valence in general [31][32][33][34][35][36][37], as well as with specific negative emotions of depressive affect (which captured the combination of sadness and anhedonia) [38][39][40][41] and anxiety, fear, or threat specific emotions [38][39][40]42].…”

Human adaptative behavior to Antarctic conditions: A review of physiological aspects

“…According to Palinkas and Suedfeld (2008), the way expeditionary team members are affected by these conditions depends largely on the meanings they attribute to each of them, so that camping in Antarctica during the summer can be either fun or disturbing. However, for military personnel assigned to research stations, sometimes with long periods of isolation, the overarching meaning is one of fulfillment of duty, which does not rule out psychological impact with physical and mental consequences (Wang et al, 2020).…”