The effect of Sunlight therapy on Sleep Quality of the Older Adults, referring to Rofeideh hospital Tehran

Elderly people often suffer from sleep disorders and to solve it, the elderly often suffers from sleep disorders and seek more help from medication. While non-pharmacological methods, including light therapy, as one of the non-invasive methods, can have an effective role on the sleep-wake cycle. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of light therapy on the quality of sleep of elderly referring to Rofeideh Clinic in Tehran.

This study was conducted during one year of pre-test-post-test of a group of 30 elderly people who referred to Rafideh Clinic, using the sampling method to access the conditions among those eligible to enter the study in 2022. The light therapy intervention was performed for 60 minutes a day, between 8-10 AM and on sunny days for 30 consecutive days. Data were collected through demographic questionnaire, Pittsburgh sleep quality questionnaire and cognitive test questionnaire. SPSS version 25 software and Yeoman-Whitney, Shapiro-Wilk, independent t, paired t, Wilcoxon, one-way variance, Kruskal-Wallis statistical tests were used to analyze the data at a significant level (P<0.05).

The average (standard deviation) of sleep quality before and after the intervention was 11 (±3.38) and 7.60 (±2.53), respectively, and the sleep status of 100% of the elderly before the intervention and 73.3% of them after. It was inappropriate to intervene; The difference between the average sleep quality and the average of all components of sleep quality, including sleep disorders, actual sleep duration, delay in falling asleep, daily functioning disorders, sleep efficiency, subjective quality of sleep (except for the component "the amount of medication use" hypnotic") had a significant difference before and after the intervention (P<0.05).

Natural light therapy has an effect on the sleep quality of the elderly, but due to the limitations of the research and the absence of a control group in the current study, and due to the Corona epidemic, one should be cautious in generalizing it to the entire society. Researchers suggest conducting more studies in this field.