Sleep Disturbances in Nursing Home Residents: Links to Quality of Life and Daily Functioning

The current study sought to determine the association of sleep with HRQOL and physical function among older nursing home residents. Participants were 37 older adults attending or residing in a semi-urban nursing-home facility in Galicia, Spain (70.3% cognitively normal, 29.7% cognitively impaired, aged 84.1±8.0, 81.1% women) who completed the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), the 5-level EuroQol-5D, a measure of HRQOL, and the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) Core Sets for Sleep, a measure of physical functional. After adjustment for age, poor (PSQI score ≤ 14) and/or worse sleep quality (continuous PSQI score) was associated with several indices of lower HRQOL, including greater immobility (b = 0.19, p = 0.012) difficulty completing self-care (b = 0.23, p < 0.001) and daily activities (b = 0.18, p = 0.004), more severe anxiety/depression (b = 0.10, p = 0.042), and a lower overall health index (b = 0.06, p = 0.001). Further, poor/worse sleep quality was associated with several indices of functional impairment, including greater difficulty maintaining body position (b = 0.32, p = 0.004), walking (b = 0.17, p = 0.001), and moving around (b = 0.45, p = 0.009).