Comparing Sleep Quality, Duration, and Efficiency Among Low-Income Community-Dwelling Older Adults With and Without Physical Disabilities

Purpose: Physical disabilities may exacerbate the natural decline in sleep quality that occurs with aging. In the current study, we assessed sleep quality and medicinal sleep aid use among 87 community-dwelling older adults with (n = 24) and without (n = 63) physical disabilities. Method: Sleep quality, duration, and efficiency were assessed subjectively with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Sleep duration and efficiency were objectively measured with actigraphy. Participants self-reported medicinal sleep aid use. Results: Significant group differences were observed in sleep duration measured objectively (p = 0.01) and subjectively (p = 0.04). No other group differences were observed for sleep factors (p > 0.05) or medicinal sleep aid use (p = 0.41). Conclusion: Findings show that physical disability may be a factor in sleep duration; however, physical disability was not found to be associated with worsened sleep perception or greater reliance on medicinal sleep aids. Future research should consider longer objective actigraphy assessment windows and explore potential subgroup differences in sex and race/ethnicity. [Journal of Gerontological Nursing, 50(7), 12–18.]
Seventy million Americans experience chronic sleep disorders (Soares de Almeida Ciquinato et al., 2023) and older adults are more likely than younger adults to have problems sleeping (Chen, 2019). Sleep [...]