Sleep quality and disturbances in patients with different-sized rotator cuff tear

The literature is unanimous in saying that shoulder pain, due to rotator cuff tear (RCT), may be mostly at night; to our knowledge, this statement is not supported by scientific evidence. Our aim was to investigate sleep quality and disturbances in patient with RCT and in a control group.

A case-control design study was used. We enrolled 324 consecutive patients (Group A) (156M-168F, mean age ± SD: 64.94 ± 6.97; range 47-74) who underwent arthroscopic rotator cuff repair. Tear size was determined intraoperatively. The control group (Group B) included 184 subjects (80M-104F, mean age ± SD = 63.34 ± 6.26; range 44-75) with no RCT. All participants were submitted to two standardized self-reported questionnaires evaluating sleep quality and disturbances: the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS). Data were submitted to statistics.

We found no significant differences between the two groups according to both PSQI (Group A: 5.22 ± 2.59; Group B: 5.21 ± 2.39) and ESS (Group A: 2.59 ± 2.54; Group B: 5.76 ± 2.63), p > 0.05. Patients with small tears had average PSQI and ESS higher than patients with large and massive lesions (p < 0.005). Pearson's test showed that tear severity was negatively correlated with both sleep latency (r ² = -0.35, β = 0.069, p < 0.005) and sleep disturbances (r ² = -0.65, β = 0.053, p < 0.001).

RCT is only one of the responsible causes for sleep disturbance in middle-aged and elderly subjects. Patients with small tears have a poorer sleep quality with respect to those with a more severe tear; particularly, they not only take more time to fall asleep, but also have a more disturbed sleep compared to patients with large and massive tears.

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