The effect of sleep restriction treatment on quality of sleep, sleep medication intake, and daytime function among the elderly who were members of Shiraz Jahandidegan canter in 2010

Abstract

Background: Studies showed that poor quality of sleep is a common problem among the elderly. Because of drug complications and side effects such as drug dependency and resistance and decrease of sleep depth in long‑term intake of sleep medication, cognitive‑behavior therapy including sleep restriction therapy which does not cause these problems is more considered.

Materials and Methods: This is a quasi‑experimental study on 38 elderly who were members of jahandidegan canter in Shiraz. The subjects were selected according to the inclusion criteria and were divided into experimental and control groups. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) was used for evaluation of sleep quality. A 4 week sleep restriction therapy was implemented for experimental group and finally both groups were compared. The data were analyzed by Kolmogorov‑Smirnov test, independent and dependent t‑tests in significance level of 0.05.

Results: Mean sleep quality decreased from 14.21 to 11.26 after the intervention in the experimental group while it was 13 before intervention and decreased to 12.78 after the intervention in the control group. Independent t‑test showed a significant difference after the intervention (P = 0.038). Mean of sleep medication intake and daytime dysfunction after intervention were 0.947, 1.94 in experimental group and 0.894, 1.63 in control group respectively, which showed no significant difference (P = 0.903, P = 0.272).

Conclusions: This study indicated that sleep restriction therapy can improve quality of sleep, but the amount of sleep medication intake and daytime dysfunction did not show a significant difference after intervention.

Key words: Cognitive behavior therapy, daytime function, elders, Iran, quality of sleep, use of sleeping drugs