Prevalence of sleep disturbances in Chinese patients with end stage renal failure on maintenance hemodialysis.

Background: Sleep disorders, such as daytime sleepiness, insomnia, restless legs syndrome (RLS) and obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) have been reported as prevalent among patients with end stage renal failure(ESRF).
Material/methods: As there is little published data from Southeast Asia, a sleep questionnaire was administered to all patients (N=43, 27 males) on chronic hemodialysis (HD) at the Prince of Wales Hospital, Hong Kong, to assess their sleep complaints.
Results: The mean age was 49.5 +/- 11.3 years (mean I SD) with mean body mass index (BMI) of 22.6 +/- 3.6 kg/m2. Frequent awakenings and sleep onset insomnia were the most frequent complaints (79% each), while daytime sleepiness occurred in 74% of patients. Sleep maintenance insomnia and pruritus occurred in 64% and 60% of patients respectively. Symptoms of RLS were reported by 70% of patients. The prevalence of OSAS was estimated by the frequency of observed choking (4.7% of cases), witnessed apnea (14%), snoring and witnessed apnea (9.3%), disruptive snoring (14%), disruptive snoring and witnessed apnea (2.3%), extremely loud snoring (4.7%).
Conclusions: Our questionnaire survey revealed a high prevalence of sleep complaints such as frequent awakenings, daytime sleepiness, insomnia and RLS in patients with ESRF on maintenance HD, but a relatively low prevalence of OSAS, which may be related to the low BMI of our ESRF patients.