老人睡眠品質之探討

Background: Thee is a high prevalence of sleep problems in the elderly, especially for the institutional elderly. Due to environment, care schedule, and lack of interpersonal interaction, it may be detrimental for them to sleep. Purposes: The purpose of this study was to investigate the sleep quality of the elderly and its related factors. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted. 33 elderly were recruited from three long-term care (LTC) institutions and 55 elderly were from two health service centers. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index was used to assess the sleep quality of the elderly. Results: 1. The mean age of elderly was 77.01±10.56 years old, and 67.0% had a history of chronic diseases. 2. The percentage of poor sleep of quality was significantly higher in institutional elderly (84.8%) than that in community elderly (38.2%; χ^2= 18.202, p ＜ .001). There were significant differences in the seven sleep quality domain between the two groups of elderly (p＜ .05). 3. The older the age, the worse the quality of sleep (Spearman correlation coefficient =.437, p ＜ .001). The marital status was significantly related with quality of sleep (H=2.227, p ＜ .05). The divorce elderly had poorer sleep quality. Using sedative hypnotics was significantly related with quality of sleep (U=3.121, p ＜ .05). Conclusions: The LTC institutions elderly had poorer sleep quality than that of community elderly. The long sleep latency is the main cause of poor sleep quality. Therefore, the elderly should be encouraged to participate in activities during the day and develop regular exercise habits. Furthermore, it is important to encourage the elderly not to lie in bed when they are not sleepy.