Change in sleep duration following a cancer diagnosis

The objective of this study was to investigate how the experience of a cancer diagnosis impacts sleep duration among Cancer Prevention Study-3 (CPS-3) participants.

CPS-3 is a prospective cohort of US adults aged 30-65 years. At baseline (2006-2013), 2015, and 2018, participants reported their average sleep duration during the prior year. Cancer incidence was determined via linkage to state registries. Participants who experienced a cancer diagnosis during study follow-up with complete sleep data prior to (pre-reference) and after cancer diagnosis (post-reference) were included. We matched individuals with a cancer diagnosis to participants without a cancer diagnosis during follow-up (1:4 ratio) based on age, sex, cohort entry year, and timepoint of sleep duration measures. Change in sleep duration was calculated as the difference between average sleep duration measurements at two survey timepoints (pre- and post-reference) (decrease, no change [ref], increase). We used multivariable multinomial logistic regression to estimate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the association between receiving a cancer diagnosis (exposure) and change in sleep duration (outcome) adjusted for demographic, lifestyle, and health factors.

Among the 20,210 included CPS-3 participants (4,042 cancer survivors), participants who received a cancer diagnosis had higher odds of increasing sleep duration (OR = 1.16, 95% CI 1.07, 1.27) compared to participants who did not receive a cancer diagnosis. Restricting to female participants with a diagnosis of any cancer and breast cancer only showed similar results.

The experience of a cancer diagnosis may contribute to increased sleep duration beyond expected age-related changes.