Poor Quality Sleep and its Associated Factors Among Iranian Patients Under Treatment for Cancer

Sleep disorder is one of the main complaints of patients with cancer that could affect their quality of life and clinical outcomes. We aimed to investigate major contributors of poor quality sleep in patients with cancer that underwent treatment.  We performed a cross-sectional study on 250 patients with cancer referred to the oncology department of Shohaday-e-Haftome-Tir Hospital, Tehran, Iran. Sleep quality as the main outcome of the study was evaluated using the Persian version of the self-report PSQI questionnaire. Global PSQI score >5 was categorized as the poor quality sleep. We also collected demographic and clinical data and physical performance status based on ECOG scale which grading is from 0:Fully active to 12:Death. Collecting the data regarding each patient was performed through medical records and face-to-face interviews. Mean age (±SD) of the study participants was 52.8 (±11.9) and 177 (70.8%) patients were female. The overall proportion of poor quality sleep was 66.8%. Sleep disorders were observed more frequent in patients with partial (OR=2.0, 95% CI=1.0, 3.8) and complete (OR=7.4, 95% CI=1.5, 36.4) physical dysfunction (p-value<0.05). There was also a strong association between a history of sleep disorder and cancer-related insomnia (OR=4.4, 95% CI=1.9, 10.1). No association was found between age, marital status, metastasis status, and cancer location with poor quality sleep. Poor sleep quality had a high prevalence among our patients. Patients with physical functional impairment and those with psychiatric disorders (mood disorder) and pre-existing insomnia were the main groups of patients with a higher likelihood of cancer-related insomnia.