Sleep impairment is related to health-related quality of life among caregivers of lower-functioning traumatic brain injury survivors.
Noelle E Carlozzi, Nicholas R Boileau, Robin A Hanks and 3 others
PMID 32772535WHAT IT FOUND
Caregivers of service members with traumatic brain injury who perceived the survivor as having lower everyday function and who reported high sleep-related impairment had worse social quality of life.
This link was not found in caregivers of civilians.
Key findings
01Caregivers of service members with traumatic brain injury who perceived the survivor as having lower everyday function and who reported high sleep-related impairment had worse social quality of life.
02The association between perceived sleep-related impairment and social quality of life was not significant when the caregiver perceived the survivor's everyday function score was above 85 (extremely poor function).
03This moderating effect of perceived function on the sleep-quality of life relationship was not observed in caregivers of civilians.
STILL TO COME
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What it does not show
The sample was primarily highly educated and female, which may limit how well the findings apply to male caregivers or those with lower education levels. The assessment of the injured person's functional status was based entirely on the caregiver's subjective report, not objective clinical measures. The study did not collect data on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the injured person, which is common in service members and may confound the results. Specific types of sleep disorders (like apnea or insomnia) and medication use were not assessed, so it is unclear if the sleep impairment was due to a primary sleep disorder or other factors. The study was cross-sectional, so it cannot prove that sleep impairment causes lower quality of life, only that they are related.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The study was supported by funding from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) and the Department of Defense (DoD).
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume this finding applies to all caregivers of people with TBI. The link between sleep impairment and social quality of life was only significant for caregivers of service members/veterans, not civilians. Additionally, do not conclude that improving sleep will automatically improve social quality of life; this is a correlational study, and the relationship was complex, disappearing when the perceived function was extremely low.