Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

The stress of family caregiving may affect many health-related variables, including sleep. We evaluated differences in self-reported sleep quality between incident caregivers and matched non-caregiving controls from a national population-based study. Caregivers and controls were identified in the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study and matched on seven different demographic and health history factors. Caregivers reported significantly longer sleep onset latency than controls, before and after adjusting for covariates (ps < .05). No differences were found on measures of total sleep time or sleep efficiency. Among caregivers only, employed persons reported less total sleep time and number of care hours was a significant predictor of total sleep time. Dementia caregivers did not differ from other caregivers. This is one of the few population-based studies of sleep quality in family caregivers. Additional research is needed to examine whether sleep disturbance contributes to greater health problems among caregivers.

Keywords

sleep quality sleep onset latency family caregiving population-based study

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

American Association of Retired Persons and National Alliance for Caregiving (2020). Caregiving in the United States 2020. AARP. https://doi.org/10.26419/ppi.00103.001

Andresen

E. M.

Malmgren

J. A.

Carter

W. B.

Patrick

D. L.

(1994). Screening for depression in well older adults: Evaluation of a short form of the CES-D. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 10(2), 77–84. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0749-3797(18)30622-6

Castro

C. M.

Lee

K. A.

Bliwise

D. L.

Urizar

G. G.

Woodward

S. H.

King

A. C.

(2009). Sleep patterns and sleep-related factors between caregiving and non-caregiving women. Behavioral Sleep Medicine, 7(3), 164–179. https://doi.org/10.1080/15402000902976713

Collins

L. G.

Swartz

(2011). Caregiver care. American Family Physician, 83(11), 1309–1317.

Eleuteri

Norton

M. C.

Livi

Grano

Falaschi

Violani

Lucidi

Lombardo

(2018). Sleep quality as predictor of BMI in non-depressed caregivers of people with dementia. Eating and Weight Disorders-Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity, 23(5), 553–560. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40519-018-0560-8

Fekih-Romdhane

Mhedhbi

Ben Ali

Cheour

(2020). Sleep quality in caregivers of older patients with schizophrenia spectrum and bipolar disorders: A case-control study. Clinical Gerontologist, 43(5), 533–544. https://doi.org/10.1080/07317115.2019.1680588

Fonareva

Amen

A. M.

Zajdel

D. P.

Ellingson

R. M.

Oken

B. S.

(2011). Assessing sleep architecture in dementia caregivers at home using an ambulatory polysomnographic system. J Geriatr Psychiatry Neurol, 24(1), 50-59. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891988710397548

Gao

Chapagain

N. Y.

Scullin

M. K.

(2019). Sleep duration and sleep quality in caregivers of patients with dementia: A systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Network Open, 2(8), e199891. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.9891

Groeger

J. A.

Stanley

Deacon

Dijk

D.-J.

(2014). Dissociating effects of global SWS disruption and healthy aging on waking performance and daytime sleepiness. Sleep, 37(6), 1127–1142. https://doi.org/10.5665/sleep.3776

10.

Haley

W. E.

Roth

D. L.

Sheehan

O. C.

Rhodes

J. D.

Huang

Blinka

M. D.

Howard

V. J.

(2020). Effects of transitions to family caregiving on well‐being: A longitudinal population‐based study. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. 68(12), 2839–2846. https://doi.org/10.1111/jgs.16778

11.

Howard

Safford

M. M.

Moy

C. S.

Howard

V. J.

Kleindorfer

D. O.

Unverzagt

F. W.

Soliman

E. Z.

Flaherty

M. L.

McClure

L. A.

Lackland

D. T.

Wadley

V. G.

Pulley

Cushman

(2017). Racial differences in the incidence of cardiovascular risk factors in older black and white adults. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 65(1), 83–90. https://doi.org/10.1111/jgs.14472

12.

Howard

V. J.

Cushman

Pulley

Gomez

C. R.

R. C.

Prineas

R. J.

Graham

Moy

Howard

(2005). The Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke study: Objectives and design. Neuroepidemiology, 25(3), 135-143. https://doi.org/10.1159/000086678

13.

Mather

M. A.

Laws

H. B.

Dixon

J. S.

Ready

R. E.

Akerstedt

A. M.

(2020). Sleep behaviors in persons with Alzheimer’s disease: Associations with caregiver sleep and affect. Journal of Applied Gerontology, 41(1), 295–305. https://doi.org/10.1177/0733464820979244

14.

McCoy

J. G.

Strecker

R. E.

(2011). The cognitive cost of sleep lost. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 96(4), 564–582. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nlm.2011.07.004

15.

Mills

P. J.

Ancoli-Israel

von Känel

Mausbach

B. T.

Aschbacher

Patterson

T. L.

Ziegler

M. G.

Dimsdale

J. E.

Grant

(2009). Effects of gender and dementia severity on Alzheimer’s disease caregivers’ sleep and biomarkers of coagulation and inflammation. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 23(5), 605–610. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2008.09.014

16.

Narang

Manlhiot

Davies-Shaw

Gibson

Chahal

Stearne

Fisher

Dobbin

McCrindle

B. W.

(2012). Sleep disturbance and cardiovascular risk in adolescents. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 184(17), E913–E920. https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.111589

17.

Petrov

M. E.

Howard

Grandner

M. A.

Kleindorfer

Molano

J. R.

Howard

V. J.

(2018). Sleep duration and risk of incident stroke by age, sex, and race: The regards study. Neurology, 91(18), e1702–e1709. https://doi.org/10.1212/WNL.0000000000006424

18.

Pinquart

Sörensen

(2003). Differences between caregivers and noncaregivers in psychological health and physical health: A meta-analysis. Psychology and Aging, 18(2), 250–267. https://doi.org/10.1037/0882-7974.18.2.250

19.

Pruchno

Wilson-Genderson

Cartwright

F. P.

(2009). Depressive symptoms and marital satisfaction in the context of chronic disease: A longitudinal dyadic analysis. Journal of Family Psychology, 23(4), 573–584. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015878

20.

Redfoot

Feinberg

Houser

A. N.

(2013). The aging of the baby boom and the growing care gap: A look at future declines in the availability of family caregivers. AARP Public Policy Institute.

21.

Roth

D. L.

Fredman

Haley

W. E.

(2015). Informal caregiving and its impact on health: a reappraisal from population-based studies. Gerontologist, 55(2), 309–319. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnu177

22.

Roth

D. L.

Haley

W. E.

Rhodes

J. D.

Sheehan

O. C.

Huang

Blinka

M. D.

Yuan

Irvin

M. R.

Jenny

Durda

Cushman

Walston

J. D.

Howard

V. J.

(2020a). Transitions to family caregiving: Enrolling incident caregivers and matched non-caregiving controls from a population-based study. Aging Clinical and Experimental Research, 32(9), 1829–1838. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40520-019-01370-9

23.

Roth

D. L.

Haley

W. E.

Sheehan

O. C.

Huang

Rhodes

J. D.

Durda

Howard

V. J.

Walston

J. D.

Cushman

(2020b). The transition to family caregiving and its effect on biomarkers of inflammation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(28), 16258–16263. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2000792117

24.

Rowe

M. A.

McCrae

C. S.

Campbell

J. M.

Pe Benito

Cheng

(2008). Sleep pattern differences between older adult dementia caregivers and older adult noncaregivers using objective and subjective measures. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 4(4), 362–369. https://doi.org/10.5664/jcsm.27238

25.

SAS Institute (2013). SAS/ACCESS® 9.4 Interface to ADABAS: Reference. SAS Institute Inc.

26.

Schulz

Eden

(2016). Families caring for an aging America. National Academies Press.

27.

Sheehan

O. C.

Haley

W. E.

Howard

V. J.

Huang

Rhodes

J. D.

Roth

D. L.

(2020). Stress, burden, and well-being in dementia and nondementia caregivers: Insights from the caregiving transitions study. The Gerontologist. 61(5), 670–679. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnaa108

28.

Song

Carlson

G. C.

McGowan

S. K.

Fung

C. H.

Josephson

K. R.

Mitchell

M. N.

Alessi

C. A.

Martin

J. L.

(2020). Sleep disruption due to stress in women veterans: A comparison between caregivers and noncaregivers. Behavioral Sleep Medicine, 19(2), 243–254. https://doi.org/10.1080/15402002.2020.1732981

29.

Spira

A. P.

Friedman

Beaudreau

S. A.

Ancoli-Israel

Hernandez

Sheikh

Yesavage

(2010). Sleep and physical functioning in family caregivers of older adults with memory impairment. International Psychogeriatrics/IPA, 22(2), 306–311. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1041610209991153

30.

Tapp

Derkowski

Calvert

Welch

Spencer

(2017). Patient perspectives on engagement in shared decision-making for asthma care. Family Practice, 34(3), 353–357. https://doi.org/10.1093/fampra/cmw122

31.

Tempesta

De Gennaro

Natale

Ferrara

(2015). Emotional memory processing is influenced by sleep quality. Sleep Medicine, 16(7), 862–870. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2015.01.024.

32.

Ypsilanti

Lazuras

Robson

Akram

(2018). Anxiety and depression mediate the relationship between self-disgust and insomnia disorder. Sleep Health, 4(4), 349–351. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleh.2018.06.001

Sleep Quality Reports From Family Caregivers and Matched Non-caregiving Controls in a Population-Based Study

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References