Evaluation of sleep quality and related factors in pregnant women

Abstract

Objective: Although the pregnancy period is a physiological process, it can disrupt the sleep pattern and quality with some changes it causes. In this study, it was aimed to determine sleep quality, affecting factors and sleep problems, if any, in pregnant women who applied to our outpatient clinic for follow-up.
 Materials and Methods: This study, which was designed in a descriptive style, was conducted on 256 pregnant women who applied to the outpatient clinic. The data form included personal information, factors affecting sleep quality, sleep problems and Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index. In addition to descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis tests were used to evaluate the data uploaded to the SPSS program. The error level was set to 0.05. 
 Results: The mean age of the pregnant women was 28.55. It was observed that the mean total PUKI score was 6.27±3.94 (0-18) and the mean sleep duration was 7.5 hours (3-14). Sleep quality was poor in 49.6% of the pregnant women. It was found that the sleep quality of pregnant women was poor in younger than 35 years old (p=0.026), education level of high school and above (p=0.010), who has gender expectetion (p=0.041) and not socially supported (p=0.009). The median weight gain in the third trimester was higher in pregnant women with poor sleep quality (p=0.022). It was determined that musculoskeletal pain, discomfort, frequent urination, swelling in the feet, pain/cramp in the legs and burning in the stomach during pregnancy affected sleep quality negatively. In pregnant women with poor sleep quality; problems such as shortening of sleep duration, difficulty in falling asleep, frequent interruption of sleep, difficulty in falling asleep again, waking up tired in the morning and waking up too early involuntarily were observed more frequently.
 Conclusion: About half of the pregnant women have poor sleep quality; physical complaints are effective on sleep quality. Sleep quality should be evaluated in all pregnant women and recommendations should be made for sleep hygiene.