Quality of sleep and methods of management of sleep disorders in elderly of Yazd city in 2016

Sleep quality and quantity impacts on the mental and physical health. With age, major changes in sleep pattern and structure occure that causes sleep disturbances and frequent complaints resulting from it. The aim of this study was to determine the quality of sleep, and sleep disorders and management of them in the elderly of Yazd city.
In a cross-sectional analytical study, 200 elderly aged 60 years and over were randomly selected from Yazd health centers. Demographic and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index questionnaires were used to collect data from the elderly face to face. After collecting data using SPSS version 22 and descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, t-test and ANOVA were used to analyze the data.
The average age of elderly was 67.9 ± 6.6 years. 50.5 percent of elderly were women, 23.5 percent were illiterate, and 69 percent were married. The average sleep quality score was 7.76± 3.13. Sleep quality was related to marital status (p=0.006), education (p=0.001), chronic diseases (P=0.043), employment (P=0.029) and income (P=0.001). The most common methods for managing the sleep disorders were sleep hygiene (70.5 percent), cognitive method (63.4 percent) and using sleeping pills (28.6%).
According to the results this study, sleep quality is poor in elderly of Yazd city. Health promotion interventions are needed to improve the quality and quantity of sleeps in the elderly.
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