Habitual Sleep Duration and All-Cause Mortality in a General Community Sample

The current study sought to determine whether sleep duration and change in sleep duration are associated with all-cause mortality in a community sample of middle-aged and older adults while accounting for several confounding factors including prevalent sleep-disordered breathing (SDB).

Habitual sleep duration was assessed using self-report (< 7, 7-8, ≥ 9 h/night) at the baseline and at the follow-up visits of the Sleep Heart Health Study. Techniques of survival analysis were used to relate habitual sleep duration and change in sleep duration to all-cause mortality after adjusting for covariates such as age, sex, race, body mass index, smoking history, prevalent hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, antidepressant medication use, and SDB severity.

Compared to a sleep duration of 7-8 h/night, habitually long sleep duration (≥ 9 h/night), but not short sleep duration (< 7 h/night), was associated with all-cause mortality with an adjusted hazards ratio of 1.25 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.05, 1.47). Participants who progressed from short or normal sleep duration to long sleep duration had increased risk for all-cause mortality with adjusted hazard ratios of 1.75 (95% CI: 1.08, 2.78) and 1.63 (95% CI: 1.26, 2.13), respectively. Finally, a change from long to short sleep duration was also associated with all-cause mortality.

Long sleep duration or a shift from long to short sleep duration are independently associated with all-cause mortality.