[Sleep complaints and disorders in residential home patients taking hypnotic drugs]

To analyze sleep of residential home patients taking hypnotic drugs.

This prospective, observational and multicentric study was performed a given day in nursing homes. Residents over than 65, having MMSE ≥ 15 and coherence A or B (for the AGGIR scale) were included. Aphasic residents or having acute pathology were excluded. Sleep complain was expressed by the resident himself and sleep disorder was observed by care givers. Sleep qualitative (complain versus disorder, difficulty to fall asleep and night awakenings) and quantitative (sleep duration) aspects were compared to residents who take or not hypnotic treatments.

635 residents were included. 28.2% of the residents expressed sleep complains whereas care givers reported that only 11.4% of resident presented real sleep disorders (p<0.001). Compared to the residents who take hypnotic drugs (55.6%), residents without such treatment had shown less sleep complaints (31.2 versus 24.8%; p<0.05), less difficulties to fall asleep (38.6 versus 26.5%; p<0.001), and less night awakenings (69.5 versus 60.9%; p<0.05). No sleep duration difference was found according to hypnotic drugs.

Institutionalized geriatric patients who take hypnotic drugs seem to have a significant lower quality of sleep.