The association of sleep-disordered breathing and sleep symptoms with quality of life in the sleep heart health study

This study assessed the extent to which sleep-disordered breathing (SDB), d ifficulty initiating and maintaining sleep (DIMS), and excessive daytime sl eepiness (EDS) were associated with impairment of quality of life (QoL) usi ng the SF-36. Participants (n=5,816; mean age=63 years; 52.5% women) were e nrolled in the nation-wide population-based Sleep Heart Health Study (SHHS) implemented to investigate sleep-disordered breathing as a risk factor in the development of cardiovascular disease. Each transformed SF-36 scale was analyzed independently using multiple logistic regression analysis with sl eep and other potential confounding variables (e.g., age, ethnicity) includ ed as independent variables. Men (11.6%) were significantly more likely to have SDB compared to women (5.6%), while women (42.4%) were significantly m ore likely to report DIMS than men (32.5%). Vitality was the sole SF-36 sca le to have a linear association with the clinical categories of SDB (mild, moderate, severe SDB). However, individuals with severe SDB indicated signi ficantly poorer QoL on several SF-36 scales. Both DIMS and EDS were strongl y associated with reduced QoL even after adjusting for confounding variable s for both sexes. Findings suggest 1) mild to moderate SDB is associated wi th reduced vitality, while severe SDB is more broadly associated with poore r QoL, 2) subjective sleep symptoms are comprehensively associated with poo rer Qol, and 3) SF-36 mean score profiles for SDB and sleep symptoms are eq uivalent to other chronic diseases in the U.S. general population.