Occurence of sleep abnormalities among people with mental disorders--questionnaire study

Sleep disorders belong to the most common health problems in modern society. The aim of this study was to analyze and determine different factors, which have an impact on the occurrence of sleep abnormalities among people with mental illnesses.

An original questionnaire containing 23 questions was created. 49 respondents from an outpatient psychiatric clinic were recruited to the study.

The results indicate that the majority of respondents have the frequency of sleep disturbances more than 3 times per week. In 36% of them the length of sleep was not sufficient enough, and nearly half of the patients reported waking up at night. Sleep disturbances resulted in the appearance of several symptoms (tiredness - 66%, lower motivation and lack of energy - 51%, decreased mood - 45%, attention deficits and memory deterioration - 45%, irritability - 43%). Only 19% of them declare a deterioration of their social and vocational functioning. The majority of patients sleep more than 6 hours, but the patients consider this amount of sleep as not sufficient. The methods to cope with reported sleep problems are: most of respondents (68%) take hypnotics, 4% of respondents drink alcohol before going to sleep, 4% try to solve the problem with sex or masturbation. 9% reported talking about this problem with family member and/or friends. The other 13% of the respondents do not try to make any efforts to manage their sleep disturbances.

The questionnaire confirmed that sleep disturbances are common in mental disorders and the problem of insomnia has a negative impact on mood and quality of life for the majority of the patients who we studied.