Epidemiology of Sleep Hygiene and Related Factors in Older Adults

Sleep is one of the components of mental and physical health in old age and many factors can affect sleep hygiene in older adults. This study aimed to investigate the epidemiology of sleep hygiene in older adults and its related factors. This descriptive-analytic study was conducted in 2017 with 598 people aged 60 years and older living in Kermanshah, Iran, selected through random cluster sampling. Data collection tool was a questionnaire with two parts: demographic characteristics (personal and disease) and sleep hygiene index. SPSS software-16, descriptive statistics and inferential statistics (nonparametric tests such as Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Mann-Whitney, and Kruskal-Wallis) were used to analyze the data. The significance level in all of the tests was P < 0.05. The findings showed that 64.5% of older adults had poor sleep hygiene. The mean score of sleep hygiene was 28.72 ± 6.99. Our findings showed that there was a significant relationship between sleep hygiene and pulmonary diseases (P < 0.001), diabetes (P < 0.002), sleep apnea (P < 0.001), snoring (P < 0.001), and fatigue and sleepiness during the day (P < 0.001). This study showed that more than half of the older adults had poor sleep hygiene. Therefore, older adults’ sleep hygiene can be improved through training.