Sleep characteristics and self-rated health in older persons

To examine the association between older persons’ sleep characteristics and subjective health. Older persons with good self-rated health are more likely to report a good sleep quality and less likely to take naps or sleep medication, even when accounting for comorbidity, depressive symptoms and cognitive difficulties. While sleep efficiency is positively associated with subjective health, napping and use of sleep medication are negatively associated to rating one’s health as good. These associations need to be further investigated in longitudinal analyses to better understand causality. It remains unclear, how much older persons’ sleep problems are due to age-related changes in sleep architecture and pattern, or whether they are a consequence of health problems. This work aimed to examine the association between sleep characteristics and self-rated health, taking into account potential confounders. Data about sleep, including sleep efficiency (ratio of sleep duration to the amount of time spent in bed, considered as good if > 85%), as well as health-rated characteristics were self-reported by community-dwelling persons enrolled in the Lausanne cohort 65+ study (n = 2712, age 66–75 years). Participants’ subjective health was categorized as good versus poor. The cross-sectional association between good self-rated health and sleep characteristics was examined in bivariate and multivariate analysis. The majority of participants (68.4%) rated their health as good. Compared to the participants with poor-rated health, they more often reported a good sleep efficiency (59.5% vs 45.0%, p