Short Sleep Duration as a Risk Factor for Depression, Anxiety and Fatigue in Patients with Leukemia

Our study aimed to investigate the level of depression, anxiety, and fatigue in patients with leukemias, and analyze the influence of sleep duration on the mental symptoms of patients with leukemias.

A total of 127 patients were enrolled in our study and completed the questionnaire survey. Self-Assessment Depression Scale (SDS), Self-Assessment Anxiety Scale (SAS), and the Fatigue Scale-14 (FS-14) were adopted. The patient's lifestyle information, including exercise, alcohol abuse, and smoking, was obtained from the patient's self-report.

Depression score of patients with sleep duration >8 hours (long duration group) was 56.21±11.63, which was significantly lower than that of patients sleep duration between 6 and 8 hours (medium duration group) with 59.61±8.77 and patients sleep <6 hours (short duration group) with 64.82±6.42 (P = 0.007). Similarly, the anxiety score of long duration group, medium duration group and short duration group was 45.36±11.41, 48.26±6.96 and 53.53±5.87, respectively (P = 0.005). The fatigue score of short duration group is 8.47±2.45, which is higher than others (P = 0.046). To further identify the relationship, we evaluated physical fatigue and mental fatigue levels in patients with or without symptoms of depression. We found that patients with symptoms of depression have a higher score both in physical fatigue and mental fatigue (all p < 0.001). Similar trend was observed in patients with or without symptoms of anxiety (all p < 0.001). However, alzhough patients with leukemia in long duration group have the highest score of physical fatigue (p = 0.016), no significant difference in mental fatigue was found in different sleeping duration group (p = 0.587). Furthermore, multivariate analyses were conducted and revealed that sleep duration was the independent factor associated with depression (OR = 0.270, P = 0.003) and anxiety (OR = 0.473, P = 0.010).

For leukemia patients with short sleep duration, a prompt evaluation of their level of depression, anxiety, and fatigue and the initiation of timely interventions is essential.