THE STUDY OF THE ELDERLY’S SLEEP QUALITY AND THE EFFECTS OF MUSIC THERAPY ON SLEEP DISTURBANCES

Abstract

This study is to investigate the sleep quality of the elderly in urban communities of China, and to explore the effects of music therapy on sleep disturbances. The research has two stages. first, a cross-sectional design was utilized to investigate the sleep quality of the elderly. A stratified cluster sampling method was used to recruit 431 elderly. Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index is used for data collection. Second, a randomized controlled trial was utilized. 68 elderly with the PSQI≥8 were recruited, and were randomly allocated to the intervention and control group. The control group received only the sleep health education, while the intervention group received music therapy and health education. All the interventions lasted for 3 months. Sleep quality was retested at the end of each month after the interventions. The Results shows the average PSQI score of the elderly was 7.76 ± 4.51 (0~20). There were 202(46.9%) elderly with poor sleep quality (PSQI≥8). The elderly went to bed at7pm~2am, and got up at 4am-10am, with 6.10 ± 1.54 (1~10) hours being actually asleep at night. After the interventions, comparison between groups revealed that all the other six components and total scores of PSQI at each post-test points showed no statistically differences between groups (P>0.05), except for the significant differences in daytime dysfunction component at the first month(P＜0.05). Compared with the changes between pre-test and post-test, there was significant difference in groups at each time, and the PSQI scores of the intervention group reduced more than those of the control one(P＜0.05).