Sleep and other correlates of high-level health in older adults.
Eileen R Chasens, Kyeongra Yang, Lynn M Baniak and 2 others
PMID 29248354WHAT IT FOUND
Sleeping 10 or more hours was linked to lower self-rated health, but sleep duration did not remain linked after accounting for poverty, depression, physical activity and other factors.
Key findings
01Sleeping 10 or more hours was associated with a lower likelihood of reporting high-level health (OR .41; 95% CI .21-.80), but sleep duration did not remain associated after accounting for other factors.
02Older adults who did not meet physical activity guidelines had less than half the likelihood of reporting high-level health compared with those who met them.
03Older adults taking more than 6 prescription medications were 86% less likely to report high-level health than those taking 0 to 2 prescription medications.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
This was a cross-sectional survey, so it cannot show that sleep, medications, activity, or memory problems caused lower reported health. Sleep duration came from one self-report question about usual sleep at night, which may miss naps and may not match objective sleep measures. Self-reported health, medication use, physical activity, memory difficulty, and depression symptoms relied on participant report, and some participants used proxies. The study had missing data for income (8.2%), depression questions (19.5%), and BMI (10.3%), and 78 cases had interview data only. NHANES did not include detailed medical records, so disease severity was not known. Participants aged 80 years and older were coded as 80, so exact ages in the oldest group were unknown.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that sleeping 10 or more hours causes poor health or that reducing sleep will improve health. This was a cross-sectional study of self-reported health, and sleep duration did not remain associated after accounting for poverty, depression, physical activity and other factors.