Non-pharmacological Intervention to Reduce Sleep Disturbance Among Elderly: A Randomized Controlled Trial Study

This study aims to assess the effect of music therapy (MT) and sleep hygiene (SH) education on sleep disorders of the elderly in Urmia, Iran.

This is a randomized controlled clinical trial. Participants were 150 older adults referred to health centers in Urmia, Iran. They were divided into three groups of SH+MT, SH, and control using the block randomization method. To measure their sleep quality, the standard Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI) was used. The intervention was conducted for two months. Data analysis was conducted in SPSS software, version 21. To know the baseline difference in the qualitative variables among the three groups, chi-square test was used. Kolmogorov Smirnov test was used to check the normality of data distribution and then one-way ANOVA test was used to compare the seven dimensions of PSQI among the three groups.

The comparison of seven PSQI dimensions showed that subjective sleep quality (F=14.34, P=0.0001), sleep latency (F=10.05, P=0.0001), sleep duration (F=21.91, P=0.0001), habitual sleep efficiency (F=24.98, P=0.0001), sleep disturbances (F=15.37, P=0.0001), use of sleep medication (F=1.840, P=0.04) and daytime drowsiness (F=1.181, P=0.02) were significantly different among the three groups. The combination of SH education and MT improved the sleep quality of participants more than the SH education alone.

It seems that sleep disorders of the elderly can be reduced by teaching sleep hygiene and listening to favorite music before going to sleep.