Insomnia in central Pennsylvania

Establish the association between insomnia and various physical and mental health symptoms as well as objective measures of sleep disturbance while controlling for age, gender and BMI in a large random sample of the general public.

A subsample (N=1741) was selected for a single-night sleep laboratory evaluation from a larger random sample (N=16,583) of the general public (20-100 years old).

The prevalence of insomnia was 7.5% and difficulty sleeping an additional 22.4%. The complaints were more frequent in women and in non-Caucasian minorities. A multivariate logistic regression analysis indicated that depression was the single strongest factor followed by female gender associated with either insomnia or difficulty sleeping. Minority status and a history of colitis, hypertension and anemia were also associated, but to a lesser degree. The final model did not include age, BMI as well as any of the sleep laboratory findings.

These findings support the conclusion that mental health variables have the primary independent association with a complaint of insomnia. Other factors including minorities and hypertension are also independently associated, though to a lesser degree. Other primary sleep disorders, e.g., sleep apnea, do not seem to play a major role in insomnia. These findings underscore the fact that insomnia is a symptom associated with a wide variety of mental and physical health problems requiring a proper psychiatric and medical management.