Insomnia in Older Adults: Relations to Depression and Anxiety

The authors examine the relations between insomnia and depression using the Beck Depression Inventory and between insomnia and anxiety using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and the Neuroticism Extroversion Openness-Personality Inventory (NEO) in a sample of 27 community-dwelling older patients with insomnia (mean age=70.1 years). Sleep parameters were measured using both subjective (daily sleep logs) and objective (wrist actigraph) methods. Results varied according to the method used to measure sleep: with sleep logs, longer wake after sleep onset was related to both greater depression and anxiety (NEO), and longer time in bed was related to greater anxiety (NEO); with the actigraph, longer total sleep time was related to both greater depression and anxiety, and shorter sleep onset was related to greater depression.