Sleep disturbances in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus: A questionnaire-based study

Objective To assess the prevalence of subjective sleeping complaints by pat ients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and to evaluate the correlati on between various sleeping complaints and disease activity. Methods A standardised sleep questionnaire, The Uppsala Sleep Inventory, wa s used to investigate the sleeping habits of 30 outpatients with systemic l upus erythematosus (SLE) in comparison to population-based age- and sex-mat ched controls. Results Sleep deficit (difference between need of sleep and actual sleeping time) was similar inpatients with SLE (0.8 +/- 0.9 hour) and age-matched f emale controls (0.4 +/- 0.8 hour). However, patients with SLE reported more frequent disturbances due to pain, both when trying to fall asleep (p < 0. 01) and during the night (p < 0. 01). They also reported frequent awakening s due to headache (p < 0.01) and disturbances due to other vegetative sympt oms. Furthermore, the SLE patients were awake for significantly longer peri ods during the night and they estimated their degree of fatigue as signific antly higher than the female controls (p < 0.0001). Conclusion Patients with SLE seem to get a fairly normal amount of sleep, b ut are frequently disturbed by pain and by various vegetative symptoms, e.g . breathlessness, sweating., and palpitation, which indicate not only pain but also possible involvement of the nervous system. The nervous system may therefore play a role in sleep disturbances reported by patients with SLE.