Association between sleep duration and co-existing chronic conditions in adults: insights from the 2017-2018 Canadian...

Sleep duration plays a crucial role in overall health, with far-reaching implications for individuals globally. Although research has extensively explored the association between sleep and chronic conditions, few studies have investigated the association between multiple co-existing chronic conditions on sleep duration. This study examines the association between sleep duration and the prevalence of chronic conditions in the Canadian adults from four provinces and two territories.

Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) 2017-2018, a population-based cross-sectional survey, was used for this study. The outcome variable, sleep duration, was assessed based on the question "Number of hours per night usually spent sleeping?" and categorized into three groups: "In between 7 and 9 h," "Short sleep duration (< 7 h)," and "Long sleep duration (>9 h)." The primary predictor, chronic conditions, was aggregated with a response of "yes" and subsequently categorized into no chronic condition, one chronic condition, two chronic conditions, and three or more chronic conditions, based on 12 recorded chronic conditions.

Approximately 41% of respondents reported short sleep duration, while 7.73% reported long sleep duration. Compared with respondents with fewer or no chronic conditions, those with three or more co-existing chronic conditions had significantly higher odds of reporting abnormal sleep duration. Specifically, respondents with three or more chronic conditions were 1.70 times more likely to report short sleep duration (95% CI: 1.52-1.91) and 2.58 times more likely to report long sleep duration (95% CI: 1.96-3.41). The odds of both short and long sleep duration increased progressively with a higher number of chronic conditions, indicating a graded association between chronic conditions and abnormal sleep duration.

The study underscores a strong association between the number of chronic conditions and sleep duration among adults, highlighting that multimorbidity is associated with abnormal sleep patterns.