Relationship between sleep patterns and multimorbidity in the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging

Abstract

Abstract Background Sleep difficulties are an unmet public health problem, affecting large segments of the population around the world. Poor sleep quality and reduced sleep duration impact over half of older adults and are associated with adverse health outcomes like multiple chronic diseases (multimorbidity) and reduced longevity. Methods A cross-sectional analysis of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA), a national health survey of community-dwelling adults and older adults. A total of 30,011 participants had physiological and psychosocial data collected at baseline. Sleep measures included self-reported sleep duration (short: <6 hours, normal: 6-8 hours, long: >8 hours) and sleep quality (dissatisfied/very dissatisfied, neutral, satisfied/very satisfied). To capture multimorbidity, a primary definition was operationalized with 17 chronic conditions, whereas a secondary definition was operationalized with 9 chronic conditions to capture both the primary care and public health perspective. Results In our sample, 50.9% were female (average age: 62.7 years) and 49.1% were male (average age: 63.2 years). The majority reported a normal sleep duration and approximately half reported being either satisfied or very satisfied with sleep quality. About 70% were living with multimorbidity using the primary care definition (females: 71.7%; males 64.3%), while about 30% were living with multimorbidity using the public health definition (females: 34.8%; males: 28.9%). The adjusted analyses indicated the odds of multimorbidity increased for those who reported short or long sleep duration, as well as dissatisfaction with sleep quality, across age groups and both females and males. Conclusions Disrupted sleep may be an additional behavioural risk factor for a number of chronic diseases, in the context of aging populations. It is necessary to understand the potential impact of sleep on the risk of multimorbidity, and this research will build knowledge in this important area. Key messages This research will utilize a national health survey to examine and report the characteristics of sleep quality and sleep duration among approximately 30,000 community-dwelling adults in Canada. This research will explore relationships between sleep duration, sleep quality and multimorbidity (controlling for confounding factors) among community-dwelling adults in Canada.