The relationship between frailty syndrome and sleep quality in the Community Dwelling elderly

Frailty syndrome and low quality of sleep are common problems in the elderly that can have a significant effect on their quality of life. Therefore, this study was conducted with the aim of determining the relationship between frailty syndrome and sleep quality in the community dwelling elderly.

This is a descriptive analytical-cross-sectional study. The inclusion criteria in this study was people 70 years old and older with written consent. 140 elderly people were selected by available sampling method. The data collection tool was a standard questionnaire that used three demographic questionnaires, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Questionnaire and Freud Vulnerability Questionnaire. Statistical analysis was done with SPSS software through Spearman's correlation coefficient tests.

The results indicated that there was a significant and positive correlation between frailty and sleep quality in the elderly (correlation coefficient= 0.260, significance level= 0.002). It was also found a significant and positive correlation between Frailty and poly-pharmacy, Sleep latency, Total sleep time, Sleep efficiency and adequacy, the amount of sleep medications and poor performance during the day due to insomnia in the elderly (sig≤0.05). However, the results showed that there is no correlation between frailty and objective quality of sleep in the elderly (sig = 0.522).

Results of the present study showed the relationship between frailty and sleep quality in the elderly. Therefore, due to this close relationship, the sleep quality of the frail elderly should be taken into consideration.