Abstract
Men who suffer from prostate cancer (PCa) need to make important decisions regarding their treatment options. There is some evidence that these men may suffer from sleep difficulties due to their cancer or its diagnosis and treatment. Although sleep difficulties have been associated with cognitive depression in other samples of men, they have not been examined in PCa patients, despite the importance of decision-making for these men. This study was designed to investigate the association between sleep difficulties and cognitive depression in PCa patients. A sample of 96 PCa patients completed a background questionnaire, the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale, and the Insomnia Severity Index. Comparison was made between sleep difficulty scores from before the patients received their diagnosis of PCa to the time of survey, allowing use of a “retrospective pretest” methodology. Just over 61% of the sample reported a deterioration in sleep quality, and this was significantly associated with cognitive depression (
Prostate cancer (PCa) is the second-most common cancer among men (after skin cancer), and is forecast to increase during the next 5 years (Kelly et al., 2018). These men are more vulnerable to depression, with a meta-analysis of the prevalence of depression among 4494 PCa patients (Watts et al., 2014), indicating that more than 14% of these men were likely to be clinically depressed at any of these stages. This is almost double the prevalence for depression for same-age males (9%) (Watts et al., 2014). When combined with the finding that PCa patients are 6.5 times more likely to suicide than the general population during the first 6 months following initial diagnosis (Carlsson et al., 2013), it is clear that depression among these men is a major cause for concern. Depression also adversely influences other aspects of PCa treatment efficacy, and is associated with an odds ratio of 4.45 for emergency room visits, 3.22 for hospitalizations, 1.71 for outpatient visits, and increased costs for health care, compared to other PCa cases without depression (Jayadevappa et al., 2011). The continued investigation of the nature and correlates of, and contributors to, these high rates of depression among PCa patients remains a priority.
Key aspects of the nature of depression include sleeping difficulties, ability to concentrate, and making decisions, which are included in the diagnostic criteria for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) (APA, 2013). Of these, decision-making or comprehension of information is a major challenge for anyone who is under major psychological or physiological stress (Starcke & Brand, 2012), such as receiving a diagnosis of PCa and subsequent treatment. Aspects of the diagnosis and treatment regime for PCa can be cognitively demanding, such as understanding the results of a biopsy (Sharp et al., 2018), having to make decisions about the type of treatment (Smith et al., 2019), or accepting the adverse effects of treatment (Sharpley et al., 2018). Potentially exacerbating these cognitive demands, PCa patients typically exhibit diminished motivation, reduced ability to process information, and elevated distractibility (Boksem et al., 2005). Although there is some evidence that these reductions in cognitive performance may be associated with sleeping difficulties (Royal et al., 2006), at the time of writing, a search (Google Scholar, Pub Med) using the descriptors “prostate cancer, sleeping difficulties, decision making, concentration” failed to identify any studies specifically examining the association between these variables in PCa patients.
In methodological terms, although sleeping difficulties have been reported to correlate with depression in samples of older adults (e.g., Mallon et al., 2000), that may be somewhat due to the overlap between this factor and the diagnostic criteria for MDD, which include the symptom “insomnia or hypersomnia nearly every day” (APA, 2013). Studies of the possible effect of sleeping difficulties on PCa patients’ depressive state need to take that source of confound into consideration. One method of doing that is to focus upon specific “subtypes” of depression as well as total depression scores from a self-report scale. Although several models have been posited for subtypes of depression (Beijers et al., 2019; Fried & Nesse, 2015; Parker, 2005), one model that is based upon neurobiological pathways to select groups of MDD symptoms has identified four depression subtypes—depressed mood, anhedonia, somatic depression, and cognitive depression (Sharpley & Bitsika, 2013)—which have been validated on PCa patients (Sharpley & Bitsika, 2014). One of these (cognitive depression) includes the symptoms of clarity of mind, being able to make decisions, and being able to do things as easily as previously.
The association between sleeping difficulties and the specific aspects of depression that include ability to make decisions, think clearly, and undertake tasks as well as previously, has not yet been reported for PCa patients. Although cognitive ability can be assessed via particular scales that focus upon problem-solving ability, those indicators do not necessarily link directly to depression. As well as investigating the association between sleeping difficulties and total depression, this study also examined the specific effects that sleeping difficulties had on Cognitive depression, and did so at the individual symptom level as well as at subscale analysis level in order to better understand the specific pathways between aspects of sleeping difficulties and depression that included decreases in cognitive ability, with the aim of developing a model of the interaction between these factors that might inform clinical practice.
Methods
Participants
From an initial pool of 200 PCa patients identified from hospital records, 96 PCa patients from treatment centers in South East Queensland, Australia, responded to a written invitation to participate in a study “about how you feel.” There were no obvious differences between responders and non-responders in terms of their PCa status, age, or treatment history. To protect non-responders’ privacy, no follow-up was made as to the reasons for their non-participation. All participants had PCa limited to the primary site and regional draining lymph nodes using conventional staging investigations. Treatments included radiotherapy and/or surgery and hormone therapy when required. Other inclusion criteria were: (a) the diagnosis of PCa was proven histologically, and (b) all of the treatment options were properly considered by patients via discussion with their GP, a radiation oncologist, and a urologist. Unwillingness to participate in the study was the only exclusion criterion. Table 1 describes the background data for this sample.
Background Data for Sample of 96 Prostate Cancer Patients.
Measures
Background questionnaire: age (in years); living situation (with wife/partner, widowed, separated/divorced, never married); month and year of first diagnosis; past treatments and current treatments (radiotherapy, surgery, hormone therapy, none); present status of their cancer (cancer still present and undergoing initial treatment, no obvious sign of cancer [in remission], cancer reoccurring after previous treatment).
Depression
The Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS) (Zung, 1965) is a 20-item self-report scale developed on the basis of factor analytic studies of MDD as defined in the DSM series, and includes all of the current
SDS Depression “Subtypes”
SDS items have been allocated to four “depression subtypes” described in the Introduction to delineate depressed mood, anhedonia, cognitive depression, and somatic depression (Sharpley & Bitsika, 2014) and applied to PCa patients (Sharpley et al., 2017). In this study, only the cognitive depression subtype was investigated separately from the total SDS score, for the reasons given in the Introduction. SDS items that comprise that subtype are presented in Table 2.
Mean Scores for Cognitive Depression Items From SDS.
Sleeping Difficulties
The Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) (Bastien et al., 2001) consists of seven items measuring difficulty of sleep onset, sleep maintenance, early morning awakening problems, sleep dissatisfaction, interference of sleep difficulties with daytime functioning, noticeability of sleep problems by others, and distress caused by the sleeping difficulties. Respondents use a five-point Likert scale for each of the seven ISI items, ranging from 0 =
Procedure
During July–December 2020, patients were posted a package including the Participant Information Statement, Background Questionnaire, a copy of the SDS, and two copies of the ISI, plus a stamped and addressed envelope for return of the questionnaire package. Patients were instructed to complete the SDS and one copy of the ISI for how they “felt during the last two weeks” (as per the original instructions for these scales), but they were also asked to complete one copy of the ISI for how they “felt before getting their diagnosis of prostate cancer.” This is sometimes referred to as the “retrospective pretest” procedure (Howard et al, 1979) to determine change in symptomatology over time. The traditional pretest versus posttest design with two administrations of the same questionnaire at different points in time is open to several sources of experimental invalidity, such as history, maturation, and testing artefacts (Campbell & Stanley, 1963). The retrospective pre-test avoids these sources of invalidity via collection of comparative data from the same participants but for how they felt at two different times (“now” and “then”). It is important to note that the then-test is
Statistical Analyses
SPSS 25 was used to analyze these data. Change in ISI score was calculated for each patient by subtracting the “before diagnosis” ISI score from the “last two weeks” ISI score so that a positive score indicated that a patient’s level of sleep problems had increased, a negative score showed that their level of sleep problems had decreased, and a score of zero indicated no change in sleeping problems. SPSS frequencies were applied to describe the sample on relevant aspects of their background and PCa status, and data were checked for normality. Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients were used to test for significant associations between the demographic variables and the depression and sleep variables, and Pearson correlations also provided information regarding the relationships between the three SDS symptoms of cognitive depression and the seven aspects of sleep problems measured by the ISI, which was the major research foci of this study. A priori power analysis indicated that a sample of 63 participants would be sufficient to detect a moderate effect (
Results
Background Data
The response rate was 63.2%, which is similar to other postal surveys carried out with this population (Sharpley et al., 2010). The SDS and ISI (both copies) data did not show major evidence of significant non-normality (although the ISI change scores were, as might be expected, widely distributed), and so these data were used without transformation. Internal consistencies (Cronbach α) were: SDS = .839, cognitive depression = .800, ISI at diagnosis = .942, ISI now = .943. There were no significant correlations between any of the background variables and the SDS or ISI total scores (at either time point).
Sleep Difficulties and Depression
Of the 96 PCa patients surveyed, 59 (61.4%) reported a deterioration in sleep quality from before their diagnosis to the time of the survey, and 26 (27.1%) reported no change in sleep quality. A small number of patients (
The relative SDS total and Cognitive depression scores for these three subgroups of patients are presented in Figure 1, indicating that, although one subgroup reported that their sleep had improved since diagnosis, that particular subgroup of patients also had the highest SDS total scores. Using ANOVA, there was a significant effect for SDS total score

SDS total and Cognitive depression scores across sleep categories.
When MANOVA was conducted on all of these SDS items minus those two which are associated with sleep (item 4:
Deterioration of sleep quality and Cognitive depression
Of the 59 patients who reported a deterioration in sleep quality, there were significant correlations between their ISI-based sleep deterioration from diagnosis to the time of data collection and their total SDS score (
Pearson Correlations Between SDS Cognitive Depression and Seven ISI Items.
To identify which aspect of cognitive depression was most strongly associated with
Discussion
Although both have often been accepted as negative outcomes of cancer, the specific association between difficulties falling asleep and the subtype of depression that is linked to ability to think clearly (i.e., cognitive depression) has not been previously reported for PCa patients. With over 60% of the current sample reporting an increase in sleeping difficulties following their diagnosis of, and treatment for PCa, these results provide further evidence that this process is stressful for these men, and that deterioration in sleeping quality is relatively widespread among them. The fact that the usual “background” factors such as age, time since diagnosis, treatment type, cancer status, and relationship status were not significantly correlated with SDS total or cognitive depression scores suggests another more powerful factor was responsible for these men’s depression. That factor may have been their difficulty falling asleep.
The apparently higher score for total depression among those patients who reported that their sleep quality had improved since receiving their diagnosis was resolved when the two SDS items relating to sleep were removed from the analysis. The fact that there was no significant difference between subgroups for their total non-sleep symptom SDS scores, but that those patients who reported that their sleep quality had improved also said that they were more irritable than patients whose sleep quality remained unchanged, is an unexpected finding.
Of those men who reported that their sleep quality had deteriorated, the severity of that deterioration was significantly correlated with their cognitive depression. Further, that association appeared to be based upon their difficulties in falling asleep rather than staying asleep, waking too early, and the ways that sleep difficulties interfered with their daily functioning or caused distress to them.
There is already an established relationship between depression and adverse treatment outcomes in PCa patients, and these results add to that literature by suggesting a more detailed association between one aspect of those adverse outcomes (i.e., sleep deterioration) and a particular subtype of depression that may hinder these men’s ability to consider the diagnostic results and treatment options that they receive, and about which they are required to make decisions that can bring long-lasting sequalae. For example, the prevalence of urinary incontinence (Tienza et al., 2018) and erectile dysfunction (Emanu et al., 2016) are not trivial after treatment for PCa, and there is some discussion in the literature regarding the relative likelihood of these side effects from the major PCa treatments such as surgery and radiotherapy (Barocas et al., 2017). This information is often provided to PCa patients before they make treatment decisions, and it is perhaps not surprising that they report that making decisions about treatment, or understanding how treatment might affect them, are the “worst aspects” of the PCa experience (Sharpley et al., 2018).
Study Limitations
The sample size was satisfactory for the analyses undertaken, but larger and more comprehensive samples would enhance the generalizability of these results. The validity of the patient group was confirmed by clinical assessment relevant to determine the presence of PCa. The instruments used to assess total depression and cognitive depression and sleep quality are valid and reliable for PCa patients, but clinician interviews may offer greater validity. The sample was restricted to one geographical region of Australia, and no attempt was made to test the generalizability of these results to other cultural and social settings. Although background factors such as age, cancer status, treatments, and relationship status were examined via correlational analyses, no direct comparison of these factors’ effects upon sleep quality was undertaken. In particular, changes in sleeping habits due to age deserve further exploration. A single measure of sleep quality change was taken via the retrospective pretest procedure which, although validated in several samples (including PCa patients), remains a cross-sectional methodology. Longitudinal data collection is always valuable in teasing out variability over time, and this is a recommended avenue for further research.
Clinical Implications
These results underscore the need to examine the specific effects of sleep-related MDD symptoms when assessing the associations between sleep quality and depression and raise the issue of confounding of symptoms in clinical settings where multiple self-report scales such as the ISI and SDS may be used to assess PCa patient well-being and mental health. In terms of treatment options, medication might be considered as a “first-line” therapy to assist PCa patients who have experienced an increase in difficulty falling asleep. Although not a feasible long-term solution, the assistance of this line of treatment might relieve the anxiety and stress experienced by PCa patients who find that they are no longer able to fall asleep easily since receiving their diagnosis of PCa. One systematic review of 13 studies of behavioral interventions for sleep quality in 1154 hospital patients reported that relaxation techniques were effective for between zero and 38% of patients, sleep hygiene was effective in 5% of patients, and between 7% and 18% of patients improved under daytime bright light exposure (Tamrat et al., 2014). Those authors concluded that there was little evidence that non-pharmacological treatments were effective in hospitalized patients. PCa patients are hospitalized only briefly during treatment and occasionally for subsequent procedures if necessary. The results of another review of 112 papers of “Mind-Body Interventions” (MBI) for non-hospitalized participants may be more relevant. That review reported that 60% of studies reported beneficial effects on sleep quality; medication, movement-based MBI, and relaxation showed at least some improvements in sleep quality according to at least one sleep outcome measure. Of the most common interventions, 13/23 studies using meditation, 21/30 using movement MBI, and 14/25 using relaxation reported at least some improvements in sleep (Neuendorf et al., 2015). These results suggest that some behavioral treatments such as stimulus control therapy, relaxation training, cognitive behavior therapy, sleep restriction therapy, biofeedback, and paradoxical intention that have been reported to be efficacious in treating sleep problems (Medicine, 2006) might be useful following short-term pharmacological interventions, which may provide PCa patients with some initial relief from their sleep difficulties.
In conclusion, sleep-related cognitive depression was relatively common among this sample of men with PCa and had a significant inverse correlation with the severity of patients’ sleeping difficulties. Treatment aimed at assisting these men to sleep more effectively represents a major target for clinical practice. The high rate of irritability in patients whose sleep patterns were not adversely affected raises an issue for further research, but it is worthwhile noting that irritability is a key aspect of “male depression” (Rutz et al., 1995), which has previously been reported in PCa patients (Sharpley et al., 2014) and which may require specific treatment approaches.
Supplemental Material
sj-docx-1-jmh-10.1177_15579883211001201 – Supplemental material for Deterioration in Sleep Quality Affects Cognitive Depression in Prostate Cancer Patients
Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-jmh-10.1177_15579883211001201 for Deterioration in Sleep Quality Affects Cognitive Depression in Prostate Cancer Patients by Christopher F. Sharpley, David R. H. Christie and Vicki Bitsika in American Journal of Men's Health
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
